


A Profusion of Roses

by SecondStarOnTheLeft



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/M, M/M, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-29
Updated: 2014-10-17
Packaged: 2017-12-09 22:13:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 43
Words: 33,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/778563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SecondStarOnTheLeft/pseuds/SecondStarOnTheLeft
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of Tyrell-centric ficlets as prompted on tumblr</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

"A Targaryen wed to a Martell," Willas says quietly. "We had the same match when last I was in the capital - let's pray this one ends better, hmm?"

Mother hushes him, but Garlan smiles a little and shakes his head - he knows Willas would never say such a thing within the new King and Queen's hearing, if only because he respected and loved their uncle as much as he did. 

 

* * *

 

The coronation feast is  _heady_  - Willas can't honestly think of another way to describe it. Everything is in such intoxicating abundance and intensity that it feels more like Sunspear than King's Landing, despite the lack of lingering salt-fresh heat. He says as much to Garlan, who nudges Leonette and asks what will their bannermen say when they hear that the new Lord of Highgarden is longing for Dorne. Willas just shakes his head and laughs quietly, sipping his wine (Arbor gold, and only wine at all because he fears the water here to be contaminated) and sitting back as the floor is cleared for dancing.

That is when he sees her, spinning around the floor in the arms of one of her boy-lord brother's bannermen, flaming hair and silver-white gown.

"You noticed her, then," Mother says, leaning against his arm so she's close enough to whisper, even in the throbbing noise of the great hall. "That girl might have been your wife, once, had the Lannisters not intervened and ruined all your grandmother's carefully laid plans."

"She's very lovely," he says, feeling strangely breathless at the thought of this exquisite creature as his wife. How could so beautiful a woman have been satisfied not just with a cripple, but with the plainest brother, the shyest, the quietest, the most bookish and boring?

 

* * *

 

She is not at court alone, of course - her one-time guardian, Lord Baelish, dogs her every step, lingering just a little too close for a man who claims to love her as a daughter. Willas spends some considerable time with Lady Sansa as part of the King's general council, as Lady Regent of the North and Lord of the Reach, and he sees how she shies away from Lord Baelish, sees how her smiles are more genuine than he ever could have imagined seeing in this cesspool of a city.

He is infatuated, he knows, but he is eight-and-twenty and still unwed and so  _lonely,_ and he supposes that makes him more susceptible to Lady Sansa's not inconsiderable charms. 

People whisper of her, whisper that she'd best not recreate her late aunt's actions, that this Martell-born Targaryen bride would be more likely to react than the last should the silver prince make off with a wolf maid, but Willas sees the way Lady Sansa shies away from every man, the King included, and wonders how it is no one else notices.

She befriends Leonette, and he feels silly for being pleased by that, is embarrassed by the dreams he tells no one of, dreams of Lady Sansa sitting with Mother and Leonette in Highgarden, of children with his eyes but bright red curls running around with Garlan and Leonette's boys.

 

* * *

 

"I was wondering, Lord Tyrell," she says on their final night at court, having slipped through the crowds of dancers to take Garlan's recently vacated seat at his side. He can see Lord Baelish across the hall, looking murderous until Willas catches his eye, the fury sliding into an oily smile that's as false as Lord Baelish's  _fatherly_ concern for Lady Sansa. "Might I write to you?"

"I- um, yes, I would be, that is, I would be honoured, my lady," he stammers, and she smiles so sweetly and kisses his cheek.

"Thank you, my lord," she says, her hand resting on his. "It might be nice to have someone I might trust."

"Willas," he says, and blushes hot because he is certain he sounds a fool, but there is something about her that makes him act a fool. "My name is Willas, my lady - I would ask that you use it, if we are to be correspondents."

Her smile this time is warm and soft and almost shy, and that shyness makes him daring enough to turn his hand and lace his fingers with hers.

"Only if you promise to call me Sansa," she whispers, leaning right in close, and Willas smiles like an idiot (but she does the same, so it seems it might be alright).


	2. A cleverer mind that mine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is something endearing in how hard he tries, Alerie thinks - he is clever in his own way, but not in the way of her father, but that does not mean that Mace Tyrell, heir to Highgarden, will ever admit such a failing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mace's courtship of Alerie, for trinadear

She meets him for the first time at a ball at Old Oaks. Lady Oakheart throws them in great number, and Alerie always liked Arwyn, so she enjoys the jaunt to Old Oaks from Oldtown and knows that she will enjoy a night spent in Arwyn's company.

Mace Tyrell is a surprise - tall and handsome in an arrogant sort of way, all floppy brown curls and bright golden-brown eyes and wickedly charming smile, he dances with every lady there from the youngest, a girl of mayhaps two-and-ten that Alerie does not recognise, to the eldest, Arwyn's widowed mother, Lady Sarelle.

He dances with Alerie twice. She finds that as much a surprise as she does his very presence - it is no small journey from Highgarden to Old Oaks, after all, and there had been talk of the heir to Highgarden going to spend time at court, as a companion to the Crown Prince.

He is quite charming - not as charming as his smile, because he bumbles through conversation in a way that should probably offend her but really just makes her laugh, and honestly, it is nice to speak with someone aside from her close friends or her brothers and sisters who doesn't bow and scrape just because her father is Lord of Oldtown and the wealthiest man in the Reach.

She decides that, tomfoolery aside, he is not near so annoying as his reputation led her to believe, but she doesn't think much of Mace Tyrell after that.

 

* * *

 

"Alerie Hightower," Mace says, when Father asks. "Lady Alerie Hightower, I mean, my lord. I met her at the ball at Old Oaks. She was... Fascinating."

"He is  _entirely_ smitten," Paxter calls from where he's leaning against the wall, nibbling on a peach. "Danced with her twice, even though he tried to dance every other dance with her - she was a popular partner. Very light on her feet, Lady Alerie. A counterbalance for our great oaf."

Mace can feel his neck reddening in embarrassment - he used be terribly clumsy, but the master-at-arms beat that out of him when he was a boy and now, at one-and-twenty, he can dance better than most men and trounces Paxter on the yard every time he presents a challenge, the slandering bastard. 

"And you want to court this Hightower girl?" Father asks, folding his hands over his belly and tilting his head the way he does when he's thinking. Mace sometimes wonders at his father's belly, his father's and his uncles', Garth and Gormon, and hopes he tends more towards the shape of Uncle Moryn - he does not wish to be fat in his middle years. "Is she particularly beautiful, to have caught your eye to such an extent? Do you imagine courting and wedding her might earn some favour with Old Leyton?"

"She is clever," Mace says without thinking. "And witty. I don't think I've ever laughed so much as I did while dancing with her, and I was quite sober, I promise you. She has a clever mind, my lord - a far cleverer mind than mine. Mother always said I should marry a clever woman."

"Aye, your mother said that because she thinks you a dunce," Father points out, and while from anyone else Mace would take that as an insult he knows Father means it as near a jape, because Mother insults both of their intelligence so frequently that the remarks have ceased to mean anything at all, really. "Tell me, young Lord Redwyne - do you think my son's suit stands a chance with this girl?"

"She is not a girl, Father," Mace protests. "She is a woman of eight-and-ten, and-"

"Hush, lad," Father says, rising to his feet and smiling. He is slightly taller than Mace, but walks stooped over his cane - his hips are arthritic, even though he is not yet fifty, and he is often in pain. "You must write to Old Leyton before you attempt charming his daughter, do you understand? If Leyton Hightower refuses you, you must move on."

"I-"

"You are smitten," Father says firmly. "Redwyne has the right of it, I think - if her father says no, you're not to pine after her like a lovesick boy. There are other women, Mace."

Mace does not say it aloud, but he does not think he has ever met a woman like Alerie Hightower, and secretly doubts that he might again.

 

* * *

"Are you quite certain, my lord?"

Aly is giggling away to herself as she braids ribbons - silver and white and red - into Malora's thick hair, and Baelor is lounging lazily across the chair opposite Father's by the fire. All three are laughing at her, really, but she's so surprised that she doesn't really care, for once. Father had sent their younger siblings away, saying this was only for his eldest, but Alerie understands the truth of it, really - only her full siblings are here for this.

"It is an honour," she says hesitantly, "but I did not think Ser Mace particularly interested in me at Arwyn's - I mean, at Lady Oakheart's ball."

"By the sound of this letter, he's quite enamoured with you, sweetling," Father booms, waving said letter about and shrugging. "Infatuated, no doubt - but while he does mention your... What was the phrase, ah, your  _striking hair._ "

Alerie casts a hand up to her hair self-consciously. She's hated it from the moment it started to silver, when she was just barely five-and-ten, and had thought it sufficiently hidden by her hair net and the flowers Arwyn had braided into it the night of the ball that none would notice it.

Apparently, though, Mace Tyrell had, and the thought makes her blush.

"While he  _does_ make mention of that, he also says he was  _intrigued_ by your  _clever tongue._ "

Baelor snorts into his cup of wine, and both Aly and Malora look at her in surprise. Father raises a questioning eyebrow, and Alerie can feel her jaw drop.

"I did not  _kiss_ Mace Tyrell!" she exclaims. "Gods be good, Father-"

They all laugh then, and Alerie snatches the letter from Father's hand to read it herself while they're distracted.

"Well, girl?" he asks when at last he's calmed down, when she's had a chance to read the letter twice through. "What do you say we invite our Lord-to-be to visit Oldtown?"

She traces the shape of his signature with the tip of her finger and nods.

"Send the letter, Papa," she says absently, wondering why it is Mace Tyrell is interested in  _her_ of all people.

Baelor, of course, takes her distraction as evidence of her apparent feelings for Ser Mace, and so teases her constantly until the day their esteemed guest arrives.

 

* * *

She is standing to her father's right when Mace and Paxter and the rest arrive at the High Tower, and Mace almost goes to her first, forgetting his courtesies.

"Lord Hightower," he says in greeting, bowing low and then rising to smile his most charming smile. "It is an honour-"

"Yes, yes," Lord Hightower says, waving his hand towards Lady Alerie. "It is not me you came all this way to see, after all."

Mace's neck feels hot, and Lady Alerie has dipped her head just enough that he almost misses the way she hisses _"My lord"_ out the side of her mouth at her father. It makes Mace smile, because it reminds him of the way Mina reprimands Mother when she speaks too cruelly. 

"Lady Alerie," he says, taking her profered hand and bringing it to his lips. He can smell her perfume, something light and floral, and her skin is very soft when he kisses her knuckles. "I am glad you were willing to receive me."

"Of course, ser," she says, smiling so prettily. "Come, I will show you and your companions to your rooms - I am sure you will wish to freshen up after your journey?"

 

* * *

Alerie quickly learns that Mace is something of an idiot, but he is a damned well intentioned idiot, for the most part. He likes hunting and hawking and takes enormous pleasure in his horses, but he also likes music and dancing ("Although I admit, my lady, I am a terrible singer"), and even though he clearly has no idea of any of the books she mentions or the strange stories their stream of nurses from elsewhere told her and Baelor and the others when they were little, he does  _try._

There is something endearing in how hard he tries, Alerie thinks - he is clever in his own way, but not in the way of her father, but that does not mean that Mace Tyrell, heir to Highgarden, will ever admit such a failing. Mace is the most arrogant man she has ever met, which is no small triumph considering her father exists, and Baelor too, and while that grates on her nerves he is also unfailingly sweet and attentive with her.

And  _gentle_ \- he is a large man, broad shouldered and deep chested and tall, but his hands are always gentle when they dance, when he loops her hand through his elbow so they might stay close as she shows him the wonders of Oldtown. He keeps his cousins and friends in line, too, makes certain that none of her sisters are ever insulted or alarmed by any of his companions with little more than a sharp word or sharper look.

She quite likes him, which surprises her - she had assumed his charm would prove to be little more than just an empty smile. He stills bumbles through their conversations, goes off on lengthy tangents and becomes embarrassed when he realises she has lost interest, but he is like an eager puppy in the way he attempts to regain her favour.

She might have a good life as his wife, and that is why when he asks Father for her hand, she tells Father to say yes. There are far worse men than Mace Tyrell, after all, even if he is more than a little silly.


	3. A Princess and a Queen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "And what if it were not scandalous?" she asks breathlessly, and his eyes go wide. "What if I were allowed to dance as many dances as I liked with you?"
> 
> His eyes stay wide, but his mouth curls up into a grin even as he blushes.
> 
> "And what if I were to kiss you right here, in the middle of this crowd?" he teases, pulling her just a little closer. "Would that cause a scandal, do you think?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Young Victoria AU, as prompted by jadeddiva and willastyrells, with Sansa as Victoria and Willas as Albert.
> 
> Except he's French, not German. And a lot snarkier than Albert. And. Um. Basically it's really different and bears only superficial resemblance to The Young Victoria, for which you have my sincerest apologies. Read on?
> 
> (PS lemme know if you want the smut I'll probably write it if there's a demand)

Sansa begins to question things when she is ten, and Aunt Lysa has one of her moments.

"Cat always got what she wanted," she spits, and Sansa wonders what it is her mother did to Aunt Lysa to make her hate her so. Sansa has no siblings left - her family was all destroyed in the civil war, killed or lost, and she can't quite understand how Aunt Lysa could have  _hated_ Mama. Sansa does not remember her family well, but she does remember that she loved them very much. "She had a crown, all the pretty children, Petyr's love-"

Lord Baelish, Sansa's aunt's personal secretary and Sansa's guardian by dictate of Parliament, is called Petyr, and Sansa stores away the knowledge that he loved her mother because she thinks it might be useful. Secrets always are, she remembers her father saying how dangerous they could be, so she wraps this one up like a sweet from Uncle Edmure and hides it away.

Aunt Lysa keeps talking, though, talks about how ridiculous it is that a  _girl_ should be allowed sit the throne in her own right, and Sansa feels quite indignant at that - she is Princess Royale at present, or at least that is what everyone calls her, for she will not come into her powers until she is eighteen, will not properly be Queen until then, but she sees no reason why her being a _girl_ should be a problem. Women are quite as capable as men, Aunt Lyanna is always certain to remind her of that, and Sansa does so want to be a  _good_ Queen.

That is when she wonders if her isolation from court is really in her best interests for the first time.

 

* * *

 

She is seventeen when she finally manages to spend a summer away from Aunt Lysa and cousin Robert's home of the Eyrie, away from Lord Petyr who looks at her with that terrible intensity and keeps hinting that perhaps it would be best that she sign away her power until her twenty-fifth birthday, to give herself a chance to acclimatise herself to court and ruling and life as an adult.

Aunt Lysa pitched a fit about Sansa spending time away, demanding to know if they displease her so, and while yes, they do, Sansa knows it would be unkind to say so, and so instead she merely points out that Aunt Lyanna is all she has left of her father's family, of  _her_ family, but even so it takes Aunt Lyanna's husband Lord Robert coming in and bellowing in that way of his to make Aunt Lysa and Lord Petyr relent.

It is the finest summer she has ever spent, and she learns more about her family from Aunt Lyanna and Lord Robert - who insists she call him  _Uncle_ Robert, and by the end of the summer, she finds herself doing so - in those few months than she has from Aunt Lysa and Lord Petyr in all the rest of her life.

That is why she insists that she be allowed come to London in September, and because her birthday is so close, because Aunt Lyanna and Uncle Robert are so vehemently on her side, even Lord Petyr dares not defy her.

 

* * *

 

Two major things happen during Sansa's first month at court.

First of all, she hears a great deal about rumoured marriage proposals - some of which make her absurdly glad that Uncle Robert's petition to Parliament for her guardianship to be overturned to him and Aunt Lyanna was succesful, because they are from men who Lord Petyr liked to talk about, sometimes even to invite for dinner, and Sansa never liked any of them. Sansa has never given much thought to who she might marry, was always more concerned with not setting off Aunt Lysa's temper or cousin Robert's sickness or Lord Petyr's staring, and she says as much to Aunt Lyanna.

"I received a letter last week that I've been meaning to show you," Aunt Lya says, taking it from her reticule and handing it over. "From an old friend of your mother's - I think you might be more interested in this than in some of the letters your uncle has received in recent weeks." 

The letter is from Lady Alerie Tyrell, who was a Hightower and a companion of Mama's. She married a Frenchman, Aunt Lyanna confides, an immensely wealthy nobleman whose family are distant relatives of the new King of the French, and who owns huge tracts of land across France.

"You would like Lady Alerie," Aunt Lya promises her. "She and I were ladies-in-waiting for your mother together, and she is a great wit. She has a daughter near to your age, as well - Margaery, I think her name is. She might make a suitable lady for  _you,_ my dear."

Sansa writes the next morning to invite her mother's good friend to visit, and at Aunt Lyanna and Uncle Robert's urging extends the invitation not only to Lady Alerie and her daughter, but also to her three sons.

 

* * *

 

The second major event, as far as Sansa is concerned, is that she meets for the first time the Prime Minister, Lord Lannister.

Aunt Lya and Uncle Robert are, for once, in agreement with Aunt Lysa and Lord Petyr in that Lord Lannister may not have Sansa's best interests at heart, but he is one of so few who treat her as an adult, never mind their sovereign, and he is so very charming, too. His father was Prime Minister at one point, too, and Sansa remembers hearing that he and her grandfather disagreed on nearly all counts, but Sansa thinks she might get along quite nicely with Lord Lannister.

He brings forward his niece, his sister's daughter with Lord Marbrand, more than once, and Sansa likes Lady Myrcella so much that she asks that she be one of her ladies even without consulting Aunt Lya or Uncle Robert on the sense of such a proposition.

Lady Myrcella's brother, Lord Joffrey, is not near so pleasing, despite Lord L's best efforts at pushing them together. Oh, Joffrey is certainly handsome enough, with his shining blonde hair and bright green eyes and lovely cheekbones, and he is an exquisite dancer, but he is remarkably petulant and cruel towards the servants and anyone at all he views as beneath him - he reminds her of cousin Robert, except Robert's cruelty is never purposeful, and Joffrey's is  _malicious._

Still, Lord L can hardly be held accountable for his nephew's actions, so Sansa continues to enjoy his company and Myrcella's, and does her best to balance his advice with Aunt Lya's and Uncle Robert's and with what she learns herself by reading the newspapers and books forbidden to her by Lord Petyr's strict rules.

 

* * *

 

When they arrive, there seems to be not a single person who can decide what to make of the Tyrells.

Lady Alerie is tall and elegant and the most dignified lady Sansa has ever met, and her hair is a remarkable shade of silver-white. She is kind, soft-spoken and wonderfully gentle, and she embraces Sansa and tells her that she is the very  _image_ of her mother, and there is none of the jealousy Sansa is so used to from Aunt Lysa or the queer bitterness she knows so well from Lord Petyr, and for the first time ever, if truly feels a compliment.

Lady Alerie's children are quite something else altogether - tall and notably beautiful all four, with curly brown hair and golden-hazel eyes and easy, lovely smiles that charm everyone. Margaery is the youngest, three years Sansa's senior (the same age Robb might have been, had he not been-), and within a day of her being in London she has a better guage of just about everyone than Sansa has after near half a year in town.

There is a ball to welcome them, of course, but it is a small thing because Sansa is turning eighteen in just three short weeks, is coming into her power, and while she was crowned as a child, so small she hardly remembers it, and there will be no coronation, there will be great celebrations. She is looking forward to them enormously, and it pleases her to have not just her own friends in Myrcella and Margaery, but also Mama's friends, in Lady Alerie and Aunt Lya.

 

* * *

 

Margaery talks constantly of her three brothers, and while it makes Sansa ache for the three brothers and the sister she lost so long ago, it is also oddly comforting - she likes to think that she and her siblings might have been as close as Margaery is to her brothers.

There are gowns to be ordered, and while the three of them are being fitted Margaery chatters in her lilting accent about their vineyards in Champagne, the fields of lavender in Provence, their chateau near Marseilles, and Sansa drinks it all in, wonders absently if she might one day visit before realising how silly such a thing is - she is Queen, she cannot possibly spare the time to visit France, such a thing would take weeks and weeks and months, and she is needed here.

It makes her sad, in a small sort of way, to think that she will not see much of the world, but then again, most people won't, so at least she is not alone in her disappointment.

 

* * *

 

The ball is  _stunning -_ literally so, leaving Sansa giddy and breathless the whole night through. 

She dances the first dance with Lady Alerie's youngest son, Loras, who is only a year older than Margaery and quite possibly the most beautiful man she has ever met. He is quite boring, though - a poor conversationalist, charming but vapid, everything Aunt Lya warned Sansa to be wary of in the young men attempting to catch her eye and her heart in these next few dangerous months.

Uncle Robert claims her for the next dance, sweeping her around the floor like a child and booming out his great big laugh whenever Sansa whispers something about someone she doesn't like to him. It's familiar and nice and  _easy_ to dance with Uncle Robert, and safe, too, when she's just setting out onto such uncharted waters as are ahead of her, and when they return to Aunt Lya for a moment before the next dance Sansa is relieved to know that she will always, always be able to trust them.

Lord L is her third partner, as elegant and lightfooted as a man her own age despite being nearly of an age with Uncle Robert.

"Your guests have made quite the impression, Your Majesty," he says with a quirked eyebrow and the hint of a smile. "Lady Tyrell was a great favourite at court when she was younger, and it would seem her children have inherited her charm."

"They  _are_ very charming, aren't they?" she agrees, smiling as Margaery spins past with Joffrey, winking over his shoulder at her. "I am glad I thought to invite them to visit - Lady Alerie has been telling me the most amusing stories of my mother, you see, and between her and Uncle Robert it is almost as if I really knew my parents."

"I imagine that is a great comfort to you," Lord L says. "I would be wary, though, Your Majesty - they  _are_ French, after all."

 

* * *

 

It is not until late into the evening that Sansa finds herself dancing with Margaery's eldest brother.

Willas is quieter than his brothers and sisters, to the point where he seems almost shy, but now, Sansa finds that he is quite as charming as his mother - he has a very deep voice, his accent heavier than the rest of his family's, but he is witty and clever and has better English than either of his brothers by just enough for him to be quite devilishly amusing with his words.

"I was very fond of your parents," he tells her, r's rolling and eyes far away. "Your mother, she was a very  _good_ lady, yes? And very beautiful - you look a great deal like her, I think."

"So I have been told," Sansa says, swaying to avoid fat Lord Manderly and his slender eldest granddaughter, pressing closer to Willas than she might have otherwise, close enough to catch the faintest hint of lavender off his clothes. "I do not think I am so lovely as her, though - she had the most wonderful smile. I remember her smile, even when everything else fades."

"I think you may be more beautiful," Willas says, and then he blushes deep pink. "Forgive me, Your Majesty, I speak out of turn."

Sansa is certain her cheeks are quite as pink as his when she dips her head and assures him that she could not possibly take offence to such a compliment, and while she is taken for the next dance by Harry Karstark, a distant cousin, she finds herself in the arms of sweet, shy Willas Tyrell for the dance after that, the last of the night, and readily accepts his offer to accompany her to her rooms (under Uncle Robert and Aunt Lya's supervision, of course).

 

* * *

 

Despite having been banned from her presence, Lord Petyr is always about, always  _lingering,_ and Sansa wishes there were some way to get  _rid_ of him.

"He wished to marry your mother," Lady Alerie whispers one morning as she braids Sansa's hair into the fashion of the French court, just as an experiment, just to see if it might suit the shape of her face. "Your grandfather refused, of course, but there was always a rumour that your dear aunt Lysa carried a torch for Lord Littlefinger."

Lord Petyr's nickname is Littlefinger because his holdings are a tiny spit of land off the Highlands, Sansa knows, but something in the twist of Lady Alerie's smile makes Sansa wonder if mayhaps there is some other meaning behind the teasing moniker.

"He looks at you the same way he looked at her," Aunt Lya warns from the other side of the room, where she and Margaery and Myrcella are going through Sansa's jewels to decide what might be most appropriate for tonight's festivities. "I would take great care to never be alone with him, and to never visit your aunt without an accompaniment, my dear."

Sansa only nods - she has no intention of ever being alone with Lord Petyr,  _that_ is for certain - and agrees with Lady Alerie that a different set for her hair would be best. The pearls, she decides, she will wear the strands of pearls tonight, thick for her hair and fine for her throat, and they will look very beautiful against the deep navy-blue silk of her gown.

 

* * *

 

The Tyrells less Margaery and Loras are due to return to Marseille just over a month after Sansa's ascension, and she is truly sorry to see them go. Lord Garlan, the middle brother, and his wife, Lady Leonette, concede that it will be unlikely that they return in the near future, but Lady Alerie and sweet Willas promise to return as soon as it is feasible for them to make another such lengthy journey.

"I wondered, Your Majesty-"

"Sansa," she reminds Willas as they walk through the gardens on one last blustery afternoon. "I have asked you to call me by my name before, have I not?"

"It is easy to forget such familiarity when speaking with so regal a lady as yourself," Willas points out, a teasing note in his voice, and Sansa laughs.

"Tell me what you wondered," she prompts. "You always wonder such interesting things."

And it is true, he does - he is one of the few who shares her interest in bettering the lot of the working classes. Lord L seems to think they are quite well enough as they are, and Aunt Lya and Uncle Robert had laughed and said she had never reminded them of her father quite so much before, but when she raised the issue (quite by accident) with Willas during one of their walks, he had returned her interest, offering his own ideas and theories and augmenting her belief that something must be done, although she still does not quite know what.

"I wondered,  _Sansa,_ if I might write to you when I return home," he says, and when she looks up at him his cheeks are quite pink again - he blushes so very easily, and while it is something she hates in herself she finds it disarmingly endearing in him, especially considering he is near to ten years her senior and yet seems so young when he blushes. "I think I might find great pleasure in a correspondance with you, and that I might be able to offer some measure of levity to you in what will doubtless be quite a serious year that you have ahead of you."

She smiles (she is unaware of how wide she smiles, although Aunt Lya will tease her for it later) and nods eagerly, gripping his arm tight and pressing just a little closer.

"I would very much like that," she says. "But you must promise not to grow bored of me if I complain about being queen too often. Do you promise?"

 

* * *

 

She tours the country for the next months - a stream of cities and towns that blur together despite Aunt Lya pointing out the differences, cheering crowds that all melt into one by the end of it all. She is tired much of the time, her feet aching and her head spinning. She supposes that at least she has Margaery and Myrcella - other ladies, too, but none to whom she feels quite so close - and Aunt Lya is with her for much of the earlier leg of the tour, so that is something.

And there are Willas' letters, often with a sprig of dried lavender tucked among the pages, or a pressed flower - roses, usually, deep golden roses that he tells her grow in great abundance in their gardens, that match his father's sigil. He is just as witty in writing as he is in person, and she finds herself waiting until she is alone in bed at night to read his letters, curling up under the covers and reading by candlelight, and it is almost as if she can hear the rumble of his deep, deep voice murmuring the words.

Lord L, she thinks, disapproves of her writing to Willas - he never says as much, of course, but Sansa has noticed that aside from dismissing her curiosity about the conditions of the working classes he never says anything at all to offend her, and that seems suspicious. She and Aunt Lya are close, after all, and she and Uncle Robert too, but they fight (disagree, a lady must not fight) often, discuss things at great length and often, if Uncle Robert is involved, at great volume.

But Lord L rarely openly disagrees with her. That is what prompts her to begin asking Uncle Robert and Uncle Edmure to send her reports of goings-on in Parliament, because they are the only ones she trusts to root out the truth from all the rumours and posturing for her. She tells Willas of all this, and he shares his concerns about Lord L's motives, given the Lannisters' history as a family - they have always been greedy for power, he reminds her, recalling different points in worryingly recent history. 

She does not mention this to Myrcella, of course, because Myrcella idolises her uncle (both uncles, including the one who apparently teaches at Oxford but who nobody ever speaks of, for some reason), or to Margaery, because Sansa loves Margaery but does not quite trust her entirely.

So she writes it all down, and dabs her perfume on the pages, and seals them away to be sent to Marseille.

 

* * *

 

Lady Alerie and Willas return to England just in time for Sansa's twenty-first birthday.

There is a tearful reunion between Lady Alerie and Margaery and Loras, and while Willas is more restrained he is very obviously delighted to see his brother and sister as well - but he blushes the moment he moves to greet Sansa, bowing deeply over her hand and lingering just a split second longer than really proper.

Sansa, usually an absolute stickler for decorum, does not mind a bit that Willas is being slightly improper.

"This business of not dancing with a man not your promised more than twice," he says as they dance their second dance at her birthday ball, "it is very silly, I think."

"Your French sensibilities are rather different to ours, I daresay," she teases, and he chuckles, low and rich, and shakes his head.

"You have been an exemplary queen thus far," he says, soft enough that only she might hear. "I think that it is beyond time you scandalise your people, if only a little."

"And what if it were not scandalous?" she asks breathlessly, and his eyes go wide. "What if I were allowed to dance as many dances as I liked with you?"

His eyes stay wide, but his mouth curls up into a grin even as he blushes.

"And what if I were to kiss you right here, in the middle of this crowd?" he teases, pulling her just a little closer. "Would that cause a scandal, do you think?"

 

* * *

 

She formally proposes the following morning, and he  _does_ kiss her then.

In fact, he kisses her first, and when she's dizzy and breathless and clutching at him just so she doesn't collapse in a pool at his feet, she asks him to marry her, and he laughs and sweeps her into his arms and spins her around and around and kisses her again, hot and heady and hard, before saying yes, slipping into French as he laughs and holds her close and kisses her hair and her brow and her eyelids and the tip of her nose and her mouth a third time, until Aunt Lya comes in and catches them.

 

* * *

 

Sansa meets her father-in-law to be just three days before her wedding, when he arrives from Marseilles with Willas' brother and sister-in-law and, to Sansa's surprise, his grandmother, Lord Tyrell's widowed mother.

Sansa thinks she might be best served to avoid Lady Olenna, but Lord Tyrell is quite amusing in a robust, grumpy sort of way, rather like Uncle Robert but with less laughter.

"I suppose it is no small thing to be a prince consort," he huffs at Willas. "Garlan always liked Marseille more than you did, anyways."

 

* * *

 

Sansa has never been more nervous than on her wedding night, which is why she stands by the side of the bed, fiddling with her fingers and wondering if she ought have braided her hair, until Willas enters the room.

The door shuts behind him with a click, and he slowly crosses the room towards her, stripping off his nightclothes as he goes, slowly and deliberately.

He is bare but for his underpants when he reaches her, and he takes one of her hands and presses it flat over his heart, which is thundering just as hard as her own.

When he kisses her this time, her entire body feels hot, and she knows that they will not be interrupted.

The thought thrills her, and gives her the courage to wind her arms around his neck and press close against him.


	4. A crown of sweet-smelling blossoms

The first time Leonette sees Garlan Tyrell, he’s falling off his horse solely to amuse her youngest sister, and he does it so skilfully that she cannot help but tease that his reputation in the lists must all be falsehoods.

"And we were told that the knights of House Tyrell were the _finest_ in the Reach," she says idly, smoothing down Amalie's hair and smiling. "Welcome to Cider Hall, my lord."

He merely launches himself to his feet, dusts himself off and bows low, grinning widely. There are apple blossoms in his curly hair, and his cloak is hanging all askew, but that does not take away from his height, the breadth of his shoulders. He is a handsome enough man, although he seems entirely too aware of it.

"You wound me, my lady," he laughs, righting his cloak and ruffling his hair to clear it of his diadem of flowers. "To prove to you the worth of my House, I shall not only compete with valour in this tourney your lord father is so graciously hosting, but I shall win, and I shall crown you my Queen of Love and Beauty."

"To prove a point, my lord?"

"Just ser," he corrects. "I am no lord, my lady - and who else might I crown, my lady? I have seen no face so fair as yours in all of the Reach, I swear it to you here."

"And I imagine that you have traveled widely, Ser Garlan," Leonette mocks, and Amalie elbows her sharply in the side - Father always does say that Leonette's tongue is loose even around her betters, and Daven and their sisters have made it their business to chide her into behaving.

Ser Garlan, though - Ser Garlan Tyrell laughs, and then takes his leave with a smile and a wink.

 

* * *

 

He does indeed ride to victory the next day - Leonette has never seen a man so at home on horseback, so at ease in the saddle, and it pleases her that he was not fool enough to ask her favour. He asked Amalie's instead, and has earned himself a true admirer in her little sister.

Even after his promises the day before, it amuses her when he takes the crown of sweet-smelling blossoms from Father only to bestow it on her.

"The fairest blossom of a magnificent bounty," he says with a grin, and Leonette laughs and adjusts the crown in her hair and agrees to dance the first dance with him that night.

"You are quite the horseman, ser," she says as they dance. "My sisters and I greatly admired your mastery of your mount in the lists."

"Ah, I am a poor enough rider, my lady," he laughs (always laughing, and yet there is no falsity or malice in his laughter, only joy at everything, particularly life). "My brother - my elder brother, that is, Willas, our lord father's heir, now  _there_ is a true master of horsemanship. He is part horse, our lady mother often says, and Loras, my younger brother, he is near as skilled as Willas - Father sometimes japes that if we did not have his look, he would think our lady mother must have found a Dothraki to father us."

He is good at this, at idle conversation, at making her laugh, and he speaks often and with great love of his family. She dances with him four times that night, feeling incredibly small in his hold.

He leaves two days later, and after that, she does not see Ser Garlan of House Tyrell for some time.

 

* * *

 

When next they meet it is at Highgarden, for a great ball such as Lord Tyrell apparently enjoys throwing - the excuse for this one, Mother says, is to find wives for Lord Tyrell's sons (there is never a mention of a husband for his daughter, though), but really, Lord Tyrell simply enjoys the revelry.

"There will probably be a tourney with it," Father says with a roll of his eyes. "Mace will say there were no plans, that it was a spur of the moment decision, but it is probably planned to be the smallest detail already."

And yes, it is - Lord Tyrell throws a great feast on the first night, wild and heady and rich and sumptuous, and Ser Garlan greets Leonette eagerly, tucks her hand through his elbow and guides her forward to greet his family, the brothers he said outstrip him in the saddle, the sister he so obviously dotes on, Lord and Lady Tyrell who balance one another so well.

His brothers give her queer, wry looks, smiles that are edged with something like mirth, but when she says as much to Ser Garlan he blushes and makes some muttered excuse. 

She dances five dances with him that night, even though there are a great many other ladies vying for his attention.

 

* * *

 

He begins writing her letters, then - he is no poet, no wordsmith, but there is a pleasing honesty to his letters, a complete lack of guile that is refreshing. He tells her stories of his brothers and sister (though less of pretty Loras, away squiring at Storm's End with the King's brother), of his father's antics, of his cousins and friends and of his horses and his hawk and of every little amusement he finds pleasure in, of which there are a great many.

She writes to him in return, of her sisters and Daven, of the new breed of apples Father has been considering introducing into the eastern orchards, of her own hawk Silverwind, of her broken arm when she falls after trying to chase Amalie down from a tree.

She thinks that mayhaps they are friends, if a man and a woman are allowed to be friends, and so she ignores the way Daven and their sisters sing silly songs about her and Ser Garlan whenever a new letter comes from Highgarden.

 

* * *

 

Four years almost to the day after the first time Leonette met Ser Garlan of House Tyrell, he rides once more through the gates of Cider Hall, this time accompanied by his elder brother and younger sister.

He is one-and-twenty now, she just barely twenty, and he is taller than ever and broad and strong and less aware of how fine his face is, and that is what Leonette remembers when Garlan sidles up to her and asks if she would mind terribly if he asked her father for her hand.


	5. Absolutely perfect

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sansa, Willas, and cause for celebration

She lets out one last triumphant scream and collapses back against him, gulping down lungfuls of air as the babe shrieks its displeasure-

“A boy, my lady,” Maester Lomys announces, sounding near as proud as Willas feels. “A big, strong lad, too.”

Sansa laughs breathlessly, reaching back over her shoulder and twisting her fingers into Willas’ hair as he presses a kiss to her shoulder.

“Well done, love,” he says, smiling so wide his cheeks hurt as they watch the midwives clean off the babe  _our son_  and swaddle him.

“Help me sit up,” she insists, once Maester Lomys has finished whatever he was doing between her legs (afterbirth, Willas remembers vaguely, isn’t that something?). “Help me up, Willas, I want to hold him, help me up-“

So he does, he levers her up and shifts back up on the bed himself, the better to support her, and he pulls her hair back over her shoulders when one of the midwives settles the babe into Sansa’s arms.

“Leo,” she breathes, and while his eyes are closed his hair is the precise colour of Sansa’s, what little of it there is, but it seems as curly as Willas’. “Oh, Willas, isn’t he beautiful?”

“He’s absolutely perfect,” Willas agrees, and when she looks back and smiles at him he can’t help but kiss her, because he’s so happy he could just about float away with it.


	6. The key to the North

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bran Stark might not have the use of his legs, but they say he knows a great deal too much about things no man ought know at all

The key to the North, they once said she was, but he doubts that anyone anticipated anything like this.

Sansa Stark has been lost inside her own body since the Battle of the Dawn - people whisper warg, skinchanger, witch, talk of her being a part of the magic that brought down the Wall and the Walkers with it but not guarded by a direwolf or dragon as her siblings and the Targaryens were. 

The North refuses to bend the knee to anyone unless Bran the Broken’s sister is restored, and they have no reason to truly fear retribution - winter has truly come, snows ten feet deep blanketing the land as far as the eye can see, but for the deep trench of the kingsroad that the Lord of Winterfell insists be kept clear.

People have sent all manner of gifts to try and bring her back, apparently - tinctures and salves and strange herbs to be burned by her bedside, so said her brother when he wrote to Willas.

Willas wonders at that, even as he rides through the gates of Winterfell. Bran Stark might not have the use of his legs, but they say he knows a great deal too much about things no man ought know at all, and he wonders what it was that  _truly_  prompted the man people call the Crippled King behind his back (and Queen Daenerys’, for she would not tolerate an independent North) to send for the Lord of Highgarden to make the long journey here.

“There is a story,” Bran says, seeming so much older than his scant fourteen years, “an old one, our nurse used tell us, about a princess who was poisoned and trapped in an enchanted sleep.”

“A tale too familiar for your tastes now, I’m sure,” Willas remarks idly, setting aside his crutches once he finally settles into his chair. “I presume the princess awoke?”

“Mm,” Bran agrees, the strangest sort of smile on his face. “With a kiss from her prince - it broke the enchantment or whatever it was.”

“Prince Aegon had best visit then,” Willas japes before he can think better of it, but to his relief Bran laughs.

“Oh, he did,” Bran says, and his smile is dark now, bitter. “But Stark women have never been meant for Targaryen princes.”

No, they have not, but when Sansa’s eyes open bright blue after, at Bran’s urging, Willas presses a kiss to her hand (how disrespectful it would have been to kiss her lips, to presume such a thing would be welcomed), he cannot help but hope that this particular Stark woman might be meant for a Tyrell man.


	7. She's not an it

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Not in front of the kid,” Oberyn said, knocking aside Willas’ cane with a smile. “Does she look like me, do you think?”

“She’s not an  _it,_ Oberyn, she’s apparently your  _daughter!”_

Oberyn looked down at the little girl sitting on the rug in front of Doran’s elaborate marble fireplace doubtfully. Apparently, some ex-girlfriend or other or Oberyn’s had arrived at Sunspear, child in arms, and shrieked hysterically about how she’d had enough - and then run away, only after making sure to leave the kid and all her paperwork behind.

“I can’t have a daughter,” Oberyn said, dropping to his hunkers and tipping the girl’s face up to have a look at her. “Willas, I’m only twenty-four - I can’t have a three year old daughter!”

Willas scoffed, poking Oberyn’s side with his cane.

“You say that as though it’s biologically impossible-“

“Not in front of the kid,” Oberyn said, knocking aside Willas’ cane with a smile. “Does she look like me, do you think?”

“She has your nose and your hair,” Willas said, settling into the nearest chair and leaning forward. “Your grumpy face, too.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Oberyn said airily, rising to his feet and lifting the girl with him. “I’m going to ask Doran if he thinks she’s really mine.”

“I’ll call Mum, see what kind of things we’re going to need for the house,” Willas offered, coming to stand beside them. “She does look quite like you, Oberyn - although her name is a bit unfortunate.  _Obara._ What was her mother thinking?”

“You don’t have to-“

Willas kissed him and then rolled his eyes.

“Oh yes, because running away at the first hiccup is exactly the kind of thing I’m known for. Well done, Oberyn, your faith in me is  _astounding.”_

“A  _child_ is hardly a hiccup, Willas.”

“Well,” Willas said carefully, smoothing down Obara’s hair gently and smiling just a little. “It’s not as though we might have children between the two of us, and I quite like that we might have at least one who looks like one or the other of us, don’t you?”


	8. Lost years

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They say he may be slightly confused for a time, and prone to dizzy spells.

There was a crack - loud enough to be heard over the cheering crowds, if you were close enough - when Loras hit the ground, and while at first everyone laughs that he must have damaged his pretty armour, when he doesn’t get up the murmured worries begin.

The maesters assure Renly that while Loras has cracked his skull (“Quite the impact, he’s lucky he didn’t break his neck”), he has probably not done any lasting damage. They say he may be slightly confused for a time, and prone to dizzy spells.

That’s why Renly doesn’t worry overmuch when Loras asks where he is when he wakes - he just sends for a maester, thinking little of it.

But then Loras asks for Maester Lomys, who is at Highgarden, who Loras has not seen since he was little more than a boy, and Renly begins to worry very much.


	9. Running Away

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No, this makes sense - he just needs to prove that to Renly

It’s the only thing that makes sense, somehow - if they stay, Renly will have to marry someone, father children and actually be Lord of Storm’s End, and Loras will return to Highgarden and… And what? Train Garlan and Willas’ sons to fight? Go with Margaery to wherever she ends up married into and act as her sworn sword?

No, this makes sense - he just needs to prove that to Renly, needs to have everything prepared before he presents the idea to Renly. 

He wishes Margaery were here - she has more a head for this sort of thing than him, is better at details. She could help him plan this so that he and Renly might never be found, might never be  _caught._


	10. Poor behaviour

It’s a warm night, and clear, too. Sansa’s thankful for that - one last night on their blanket in the orchard, the air sweet with the scent of apple blossom, watching the stars and being close.  

Willas is warm, too, his heart beating steadily under her ear, chest rising and falling evenly as they lie curled together, staring up at the sky. She’s glad her dress is so light, deep navy-blue linen piped and buttoned in dark green and thin enough that she can feel Willas’ heat everywhere their bodies touch. His shirt seems thinner than usual too, a soft olive that brings out the green in his hazel eyes, open halfway down his chest so she could slip her hand in to touch his skin. 

He has his eyes closed, now, his face pressed against her hair, seems just to be enjoying holding her.

His eyes open when she shifts, when she leans up to kiss him, but they drift closed again when she catches his lower lip between her teeth (he likes it to almost hurt, just a little, something which had alarmed her for a split second at first, before she remembered just who she was kissing), the hand he’d been keeping behind his head coming up to twist into her hair when she leans in to kiss him properly, her tongue dipping into his mouth just enough to tease, to make him make that growly noise that makes her stomach drop in the best way.

She toys with the buttons of his shirt as they kiss, fingers trailing over skin she’s never touched before, and she finds herself fascinated by the way the muscles in his stomach jump under her hand - she’s never seen him without his shirt on, not except when they spent the day on the beach just before the war broke out, that day when Margie had dragged Sansa along so she and her mother and Leonette would have one more woman to balance all the men, but this is different - getting to touch him, feeling him react to her touch, it’s-

“Sansa,” he breathes, long fingers wrapping around her wrist when her hand drops to the button of his trousers. “Sansa, what are you-“

She kisses him again to keep him quiet, bites just a little at his lips, and he gasps, hand shooting back up to her hair, and then he rolls her and tumbles her onto her back.

His knee lands between her legs, thigh pressing firmly against her as he kisses her harder, and she makes short work of his braces, sliding them down his shoulders and humming impatiently until he moves his hands to let her take them off properly.

He hesitates again when her hand brushes against the front of his trousers (he’s hard, she felt it, this might be the last time they have a chance to be together, to  _really_ be together, and she intends to take advantage of his reaction to her, the reaction he usually so carefully tries to keep from her), but she just sucks on his lower lip to distract him, scratches at his nape just sharp enough to make him moan softly on her tongue, and moves her hand from his trousers.

She has her dress almost completely unbuttoned by the time he notices what she’s doing, and she knows right away that pulling away to look at her hasn’t helped him at all, and that makes her smile.

“Sansa-“

“Please,” she whispers, tracing the shape of his nose, the line of his cheekbone. “Touch me, at least. I want to know- please, Willas?”

His eyes are so sad - she loves him for that, loves that even though it’s hurting him he’s doing the right thing, and much and all as she hates the thought of him leaving her now, like this, she knows she wouldn’t love him as much if he didn’t do it - before he leans back down to kiss her, first her mouth and then slow and wet across her cheek to the corner of her jaw, under her ear.

All of that - the slow burning pleasure of his mouth on her skin, the tip of his tongue tracing the mole under her jaw, the soft-rough rub of his beard on her neck - fades to insignificance when his hand curls carefully around her breast, his fingers impossibly hot through the thin material of her brassiere, and her eyes snap wide open when his thumb brushes gently over her nipple, she hadn’t known her breasts were aching but they are, oh, they are, she needs more, needs more of  _him,_ and when his mouth reaches her collarbone and he sucks softly, just off towards her shoulder so it won’t show in the collar of her dresses, she whimpers and her back arches off the blanket.

“You’re so beautiful,” he whispers, nosing back along the line of her collarbone. “The first day I saw you at the hospital, Sansa, I was talking with Mr Lomys and I lost my train of thought, he thought I was an idiot until he saw where I was looking-“

He pauses just long enough to flick his tongue over the peak of her nipple through her brassiere, presses a quick kiss there before speaking again.

”- and then he laughed at me, but it took him snapping his fingers in my face to stop me staring at you, I love you so much-“

She sobs, or something very like it, and her fingers tighten in his hair when he lowers his mouth to cover her nipple, suckling softly and making her moan. She’s never made a sound like that before, and it startles her, makes her breath hitch and her eyes flash wide again, but he groans in response and shifts so he’s rocking against her hip, and she twists closer to him, slides one hand down the back of his neck only to find that he’s pulled off his shirt while she was distracted, and the skin of his back is warm and firm and supple under her fingers, she knows without looking that he’s a mass of freckles, just as he is on his arms and his chest and above his beard.

“I love you,” she gasps, “I love you, come home to me, come home to me, Willas-“

He bucks sharply against her hipbone while his hand trails down her stomach, across the cotton of her underwear, and then  _oh, oh oh oh, oh_ he’s never touched her there before, nobody has, not except herself late at night when she can’t sleep because she wants him so much, but she’ll never tell anyone that, not even him and she  _loves_ him, trusts him with her everything.

“If you want me to stop,” he says against her ear, the brush of his lips the sweetest of tortures, “tell me. Just say the word, Sansa, I’ll stop, no matter what, or if something hurts-“

“Please just touch me,” she begs, turning her head to find his mouth, to taste his lips and his tongue and the beautiful sounds he makes, “please, Willas, just  _touch_ me.”

So he does - he strokes over her gently through her knickers, but then moves to the soft skin on the inside of her thighs, and the crease of her thigh and  _oh God oh God oh God_ two fingers hooked into her knickers and he’s touching her bare skin, teasing and testing her reactions and petting through the coarse hair and oh, oh, it’s wonderful but it’s not  _enough_.

“Take them off,” she gasps against his lips, tipping her nose against his when he hesitates, “please, Willas, I want you to touch me properly, will you please?”

He kneels up suddenly then, and she takes the chance to look at him, flushed and chest heaving and eyes dark and a little wild, his trousers straining tight, and then his hands are on her hips and he’s easing her knickers down her legs, sliding them off and-

“Why did you put them in your pocket?” she asks, amazed that she can form words when he’s gathering her up into his arms, settling her across his lap and pushing her dress off her shoulders, kissing the newly bared skin as he goes. “Willas-“

“I’m keeping them,” he says, and he’s smiling that wicked grin that he keeps in reserve just to tease her when they’re in a crowd. “I’m sure you have others, sweetheart.”

He keeps her in his lap as he shifts to sit down again, kisses her neck and the top of her chest and oh God she’s naked except her bra and her shoes in his lap and she doesn’t care because she might lose him and she can’t send him off with the memory of her crying, she won’t do that, that’s why she kisses him again and reaches back to unclasp her bra and slides it off and leans back and-

“You’re even more beautiful than I dreamed,” he says, and there’s the loveliest reverence in his voice as his hands move up to her breasts. “And I have dreamed of you an awful lot, Sansa.”

Well, how can she not kiss him after that? Kiss him and slip her hands down between them to the buttons of his trousers, push his trousers and his underpants down when he obligingly leans back on his hands and lifts his hips, reach behind herself to shove them the rest of the way down his legs (she loves his legs, long and muscular and strong) and laugh when he grumbles something incoherent at the difficulty of getting shoes and socks and trousers and underpants off without using his hands, but he kisses her and she kisses him throughout it all.

“Tell me,” he rasps against her throat, “tell me if you want to stop,” but his fingers are stroking over her again and oh God one is  _inside_ her, and his thumb is brushing over that little bump right up at the top and oh, two fingers slipping in and out and it’s so good.

“Don’t stop,” she insists, rocking against his hand and pulling his mouth back to hers, whimpering when his fingers curl, “don’t stop, please Willas, don’t sto-  _oh-“_

The pleasure is tightening, coiling and twisting low in her belly and it’s so impossibly good and she can hardly stand it, and just before it snaps, just before that ever-elusive peak arrives, he withdraws his hand and laughs hoarsely at her mewl of protest.

But then his hand is back between her legs, so suddenly she cries out loudly without a care for being overheard, and his fingers are moving so fast she can’t bear it, she can’t, and when her peak hits she buries her face against his neck and keens, clenching around his fingers and shuddering all over because it’s  _so_ good, she’s never felt anything so good in all her life.

“Please,” he says, “please, Sansa, please can I-“

“I’ll strangle you if you don’t,” she assures him, angling down as he pushes up, braced with one hand behind him and the other holding himself in place.

“Oh,  _God_ ,” he groans, his head falling back, and she has just enough sensible thought left to wonder why everyone talks about how much this hurts the first time - it’s a little uncomfortable, very strange, yes, and there’s a twinge of pain when he presses past a certain point, but mostly there’s a fullness, a tight-stretch that feels right, in a funny sort of way.

There’s the pleasure on Willas’ face, too, hooded eyes and slack mouth and deep flush and desperate, frantic moan, his fingers digging into her hip as he jerks up sharply underneath her, pushing into her so completely that she cries out again, and his head is up and he’s looking at her frantically before the shock has subsided.

“Did I hurt you?” he asks, sounding horrified at the thought, and she can’t find her voice but she shakes her head, shakes her head and kisses him again as she braces her knees and tentatively begins to move.

It’s good - it’s better than good, it’s  _whole,_ and she can’t imagine how she’s going to see him off on the train in the morning, and she presses her face back into the curve of his neck to hide the tears burning in her eyes.

It’s good, but then he slips his hand between them to rub at that little bump again and that’s so far beyond good that she has no idea how she’s supposed to handle it, can only clutch at him, nails scratching over his back as she rocks harder against him, sliding down to meet him as he pushes up and that peak is close by again, she can feel it in the way the heat suddenly sparks and coils and there, right there, he’s fully inside her and her orgasm is so good she’s sure she’ll die right there in his arms, but then he peaks, too, moaning her name as he bucks up under her a handful of times before drifting to a stop.

They slide easily onto their sides, still all tangled up in one another and so completely sated that they can hardly muster the energy to move a finger - or at least, that’s how Sansa feels, until he leans over to kiss her, to nip at her lip and then suck it soothed.

“I was going to ask you to marry me,” he says, voice low and his face so close to her the tips of their noses are almost touching. “Would you? If I asked? Would you wait for me?”

“I’ll wait,” she promises him, wondering how he can possibly need to ask. “But ask me again when you come home if you want to marry me, Willas - don’t just ask me because you feel you should, because we…”

She trails off and blushes hot, and he smiles and leans in and kisses her again, and then he just holds her, his heart beating steadily under her ear, chest rising and falling evenly as they lie curled together, staring up at the sky.

 

* * *

 

She lasts until the train rounds the bend.

Then she can't stop herself from crying.

She knows that the others are no better off than she is - Jeyne went into hysterics the moment Robb tried to move toward the train, Wylla is just starting to tear up now that Jon is out of sight, but Sansa can hardly breathe, is only upright because Arya is holding her there, and she feels like the most terrible idiot but he's  _gone_ , and he may not come back.

 

* * *

 

Doctor Lomys calls her into his office a little less than three months after Willas leaves, and she knows that she's been rumbled.

"You know well you couldn't hope to hide it, Nurse Stark," he chides gently, and she feels close to tears because surely she'll be discharged now, because the hospital won't stand for an unwed mother as a nurse - and they'll probably behave as though the baby couldn't possibly be Willas', either, because he's one of their bright lights, mentored by Doctor Lomys and gifted in the operating theatre and now serving his country with the RAMC. "Have you told the father yet?"

"I don't know if it's entirely appropriate to share in a letter, Doctor," she laughs bitterly, shaking her head. "I've not- I've not even told my parents, sir. Or his family."

"Hmm," is all Doctor Lomys says before instructing her to skip over to the bench so he can give her a check-up. "I can speak with Willas' parents, if you'd like. His father and I are friends, he might..."

"Take it better coming from you than from me?" Sansa guesses, and then she nods. "I would like that, thank you."

It's not until she's halfway home that evening that it hits her -  _Oh God, oh God I'm having a baby_ \- and she barely makes it to Wyn's before she's crying, even though Wyn's working tonight so only Wylla's there.

 

* * *

 

She tells Mum and Dad the next morning. Dad looks worried, and Mum disappointed, but they're both supportive and the fear that they'd disown her disappears.

That evening, Willas' mother and Margie pay her a visit - Mrs Tyrell has always been intimidatingly elegant and lovely, but when she pulls Sansa into a hug and pets her hair just the same way Willas does, it's all Sansa can do not to cry.

Willas' father, apparently, is going to make it his business to loudly announce that her baby could not  _possibly_ have been fathered by Willas, but Margie assures her that everyone knows it could be no one else's.

 

* * *

 

Doctor Lomys makes sure she's able to work at the hospital for as long as she's physically able, but by the time she's six months along her belly is so big it's making her back bend, and she admits defeat.

"If you can find someone to look after the little one," Doctor Lomys promises her, "there'll be work for you once you're ready to come back - we can never have too many good nurses."

She thanks him, wonders if Mum would maybe mind the baby during the day so she can earn her keep, and then she lets Wyn and Jeynie walk her home and spends the evening sitting in the parlour with Dad, her feet propped up on the log box because her ankles have swollen horribly.

 

* * *

 

The baby kicks  _only_ at night, and Mum laughs when Sansa complains about it - she was just the same, Dad confides, barely let Mum get a minute of sleep, and that's a weird sort of comfort. 

Mrs Tyrell -  _Alerie, remember to call her Alerie_ \- tells her how it was when she was pregnant with Willas, comes by most afternoons to have tea with Sansa and Mum, sometimes brings Margie. Between them and the Manderlys and Jeynie and Arya, Sansa manages - and Dad makes absolutely sure to keep the more outspoken of their neighbours well away from her.

It helps. It doesn't stop her wishing Willas was here, doesn't stop her wishing she could bring herself to tell Willas about the baby in her letters, but it helps.

 

* * *

 

Sansa's daughter is born just before noon on a sunny Tuesday in March. She has exactly four curls of bright red hair, and her eyes are warm, dark hazel, just like Willas'. 

"Her last name is Tyrell," Alerie says firmly, and Sansa smiles through tears in thanks, "but what about her first and second names?"

"Willas once said he'd like to call a daughter after his grandmother - your mother, that is, so Olwyn for her first name."

"And her middle name?" Dad asks from where he's standing in the corner, cooing down at the baby in his arms. Happy as she is, and God but she is happy, Sansa also wants to be sick she misses Willas so much.

"Lyanna," Sansa decides, and Dad looks away from the baby just long enough to smile.

 

* * *

 

The letter comes five days after Olwyn's second birthday, and when Margie comes sprinting up the drive looking like the world is ending, Sansa's head spins.

"He's not dead," Margie gasps as soon as she reaches Sansa, "but he's been injured, we're not sure how, he's coming home, though, Sansa, they're sending him home, he wrote himself to say he's coming home-"

She cries even more than she did the day at the train station, and Olwyn toddles out of the house on fat little legs and pats Sansa's hair until she calms down.

 

* * *

 

He’s just getting used to the false leg now, much and all as it chafes, but at least he can manage without his cane (without his crutches, without his  _wheelchair)_  and he knows it’s selfish, that he’s only been home three days and Mum and Dad rightly want to spend time with him, but Sansa’s letters became sparser and sparser the longer he was away and he needs to know  _why,_ so his first port of call is the Starks’ big old rambling pile out on the northern edge of town.

He can hear Sansa singing even before her father, with a frown, points him around the side of the house to the orchard (where he kissed Sansa for the first time, where they… Well, where he behaved poorly), and it’s like travelling back to that beautiful, blessed summer where he sat in the orchard with her almost every evening after work and just smiled himself silly for months on end.

She’s dancing around the orchard, singing that song that she never did tell him the name of, and when she turns to face him he’s smiling, she’s so beautiful and he’s missed her so _much_ -

And she’s carrying a little girl in a flowery dress, a little girl with Sansa’s hair and Sansa’s face but who looks at him with curious dark hazel eyes that he recognises from his shaving mirror, and instead of saying hello to Sansa he laughs, or maybe sobs, and then he stumbles closer to touch their daughter, to make sure that this is real.

“What’s her name?” he asks, too confused to think of anything else, because why didn't Sansa tell him? Is this why her letters were so few and far between? Did she think he wouldn't want her and their child?

"Olwyn," Sansa says, turning so he can better see their daughter's face. "Olwyn Lyanna Tyrell."

He takes Olwyn  _my daughter my girl_ from Sansa’s arms and laughs just a little hysterically when she reaches up to touch his face, little mouth twisting in concentration, looking entirely like Mum even though she has Sansa's features.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Sansa’s under his free arm then, and she’s crying into his chest, sounding as hysterical as he feels. “It’s not the sort of thing you tell in a letter, is it?”


	11. Observations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bran has always been observant, and recovering from major spinal surgery and the associated rehab time has only made him more so.

Bran has always been observant, and recovering from major spinal surgery and the associated rehab time has only made him more so. He notices the way Mum is finding it a little harder than Dad to let him push himself, notices that Sansa finds it easier than Robb to help him out, notices that Jon and Arya are purposely keeping his spirits up and making sure he doesn’t become depressed like the doctors warned he might, notices that Rickon really doesn’t think it’s a big deal because hey, it’s being fixed, right?

It’s not just his family he notices things about though - oh no. There are some people whose surgeries were successful who come in to the rehab centre to talk, and Bran notices the way his “buddy,” Willas, blushes horribly when it’s Sansa who comes to pick him up. He notices that Sansa’s voice jumps up the register whenever she asks how his session went, if he was talking with Willas. He notices the way Sansa starts arriving early to pick him up, so she has a chance to talk to Willas, notices the way they stand closer together than Sansa would with a friend, notices the way Willas leans in close and stammers in a way he  _never_ does with Bran.

Which is why Bran arranges for Sansa to come for him an hour earlier than necessary one day, and when she sighs and says she’ll wait in the canteen, he brightly suggests that Willas join her for lunch so neither of them can get out of it.


	12. Discovery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Such things matter little to Robb - he knows his mother would be appalled, though

Such things matter little to Robb - he knows his mother would be appalled, though, because in the eyes of her gods, such things are sinful, and that is why he is disgusted by what he witnessed when he went to the sept in search of Renly.

 _In the sept, of all places!_ he thinks, amazed at the audacity and appalled at the disrespect, and wanders the camp half in a daze, glad that he had only Grey Wind with him, because he does not know what to do with this new information. On the one hand, most if not all of Renly’s forces keep the Seven, would be appalled to learn of this, but on the other, Robb  _needs_ Renly and his men if he is to save Sansa and Arya and find justice for Father.

He all but walks into Renly’s Queen, stumbles over a greeting because  _her husband and her brother, she deserves to know the truth,_ but Lady Margaery is already tugging him into a tent (hers? This is totally improper, Mother would kill him for this).

“You mustn’t tell anyone,” she says. “When I heard that you were going to the sept - I see I was too late, but you  _must not_ tell anyone, my lord, please, for all our sakes.”

He hesitates, knowing that she speaks the truth (think of Sansa, of Arya, of Bran and Rickon still at Winterfell), but still wondering how Renly can stand to lie to his people like this (how he can possibly want Loras Tyrell when Margaery is his to have).


	13. Saviours

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He was only in the damned city because his uncle had invited him along for the jaunt, and, because Humfrey was usually good fun, Willas had gone.

He was only in the damned city because his uncle had invited him along for the jaunt, and, because Humfrey was usually good fun, Willas had gone.

Now, though, they’re hostages, somehow, and Willas is relieved that he can keep Humfrey close, that even his daftest uncle seems to understand that it’s best for both of them if they retreat to the library of the Red Keep every day unless specifically summoned before the King.

(People whisper of the King’s appetites, though, and Willas thinks that he and Humfrey may be safe because they are not women, because the King will derive no pleasure from seeing them beaten.)

They hear of the movements of troops beyond the city only in servants’ hushed whispers (and from Lord Varys, near the end), and it is near to the end when they  _are_ summoned before the King, when the safety in their not suiting the King’s wants is safety no longer because Father and Baelor and Randyll Tarly are leading the Reach’s armies to war under Renly Baratheon’s banners, allied with the Starks of Winterfell (there should have been two more hostages here, Willas knows, but someone managed to get Robb Stark’s sisters away, and when the flat of Boros Blount’s sword slams across the backs of his knees, Willas is glad of that).

He’s leaning all his weight on Humfrey when the two kings fight their way into the throne room, and Loras forsakes Renly’s side for Willas’, and all Willas can think of is home, the ease of his rooms on the ground floor and the sun shattering through the crystalline windows of his reading room, Garlan and Margie and Mother and Father and Loras, and even Grandmother, provided she doesn’t lecture him.

(Later, he’ll be told he was used as a pawn, a bargaining chip to seal the alliance, but Lady Sansa Stark of Winterfell is so sweet that honestly, he doesn’t mind very much.)


	14. Stuffed and Mounted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You or any of your little pieces of shit ever lay a finger on my DI again, and I’ll have your bollocks stuffed and mounted on my office wall, understood?”

His cane cracks against the bugger’s knees, taking him down, and Willas removes his sunglasses and tilts his head and looks down as if in surprise.

“You tripped, mate,” he says mildly, motioning for Humfrey and Renly to gather up their suspect. “Shame about that, looks as if you broke your nose when you fell.”

He’s blonde, the bastard, green eyes and good bone structure, but he’s got a sneery mouth and there’s something cruel about him, something arrogant even when Humfrey cuffs him and holds him by cuffs and hair so Willas can look at him properly.

“No I didn’t,” the idiot - name’s Joffrey, Sansa remembers that now - says, rolling his eyes. “I’m fine-“

Willas’ fist slams into his face while he’s still talking.

“Terribly hard, the ground,” he says, flexing his fingers and slipping his sunglasses back into place. “And every official report will say that, too, but just between you and me - you or any of your little pieces of shit ever lay a finger on my DI again, and I’ll have your bollocks stuffed and mounted on my office wall, understood?”

Sansa’s just about caught her breath when he turns to her, ridiculously good-looking and charasmatic and terrifyingly determined in the pursuit of his duties and, apparently, her defence.

“Are you well enough to continue, Detective Inspector Stark?” he asks, gesturing with his cane for her to lead the way to the car. “If so, please do.”

Sansa smiles slightly, cradling her arm to her chest (he tells Humfrey and Renly to get the bastard back to the nick, to leave the rest for uniform, tells them he’s bringing her to the hospital  _just to be sure)_ , and she’s not sure that this whatever-it-is world that her brain’s cooked up for her is really as bad as she thought it would be.


	15. Unlikely

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He finds himself raised on high when there are no others to turn to - the people turn to House Tyrell, to the Reach where so many of them found shelter, found hope, during the dark days of the winter, the winter that took so many and left so little behind.

He finds himself raised on high when there are no others to turn to - the people turn to House Tyrell, to the Reach where so many of them found shelter, found  _hope,_ during the dark days of the winter, the winter that took so many and left so little behind. 

Leonette is as uncertain as he is himself, but Willas urges them to do this,  _make things right,_  and Garlan supposes a good place to begin is to melt down that awful chair and use the steel for something more useful - he’s not sure what, he’ll leave that to the smiths to decide - because he has no need for the damn thing, and besides, it was a seat made for Targaryens, not Baratheons or Lannisters and especially not for Tyrells.

The people think him their saviour, which makes him terrified - he was the one to ride out among them during the worst moons, yes, but that hardly qualifies him to be their king, does it? Willas reassures him, points out that he will never have to rule alone, that he will have a small council to help him, his family and Leonette to support him. 

It never stops being terrifying, not when he and Leonette kneel in the Great Sept and the High Septon sets crowns of pink-yellow rose gold on their heads, not when they ride through the streets of King’s Landing and the ragged crowd cheer them, not when they enter the Red Keep and what’s left of the nobility bow and scrape and call them “Your Grace.”

They will do their best, though, and when Willas winks and sticks out his tongue while Lord Baelish simpers during his private audience, Garlan thinks that mayhaps, mayhaps he can do this, because he is  _not_ alone. 


	16. Date night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I always good for Uncle Lor’s.”

Leyton’s already scrambling to his feet by the time Willas shouts up the stairs that he’s back, and Sansa only has time to layer on a final swirl of hairspray before she has to chase after him.

“No stairs on your own,” she reminds him, unlatching the gate and holding his hand. “Now, what are you going to do tonight?”

“Watch Fox an’ Hound!” he announces enthusiastically, and Sansa has to laugh. “And drink milk!”

“Not too much milk,” she warns. “But what  _else_ are you going to do?”

“Be ver’ good for Uncle Lor’s,” he promises, smiling up at her, and she smiles back, ruffling his hair when they reach the bottom step and he leaps headfirst into Loras’ waiting arms. “I  _always_ good for Uncle Lor’s.”

“He really is,” Loras assures her, and Sansa rolls her eyes and lets Willas help her into her coat without comment - if they arrive home to find Leyton asleep on top of a snoring Loras, the start up menu for Hunchback of Notre Dame on the telly, it won’t be the first time. Still, Leyton worships Loras, and Loras is only ever too happy to babysit, so she supposes a cranky three-year-old in the morning isn’t too great a sacrifice for dinner and drinks and the guarantee of a couple of uninterrupted hours with Willas. 

“We won’t be late,” Willas says, knotting Sansa’s scarf loosely around her neck and talking back over his shoulder to Loras. “But he doesn’t stay up past nine, and no s-w-e-e-t-s, alright? And don’t give me that look, Loras, I know you too well.”

“You were the one who fed me s-w-e-e-t-s when Mum and Dad were out,” Loras teases, hefting Leyton up onto his shoulders and turning for the sitting room. “Have fun, lovebirds, the wee man and I have cartoons to watch.”


	17. A rose by any other name

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Kink meme prompt #1](http://asoiafkinkmeme.livejournal.com/10165.html?thread=6887861#t6887861), post-series

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This could be seen as Willas' perspective on a previous fic of mine, _[A Woman's Weapon](http://archiveofourown.org/works/490541)_ , and I'm going to sell it that way because the notion just tickles me pink and because I like the idea of Sansa getting a happy ending in that world, so. Here we are.

She is astonishing.

That is Willas' first impression of his bride-to-be, the woman who will stand at his right hand as Lady of Highgarden, who will bear his children and be his companion for the rest of their days (well, the rest of  _his,_ he is near twelve years her senior and in comparatively poor health). 

She has ruled the North for eight long years, through war and winter, liberated all her family's lands, raised her brother from savage to able lord. There are rumours about her - cruel ones, that she seduced her way to power and intends on doing so once more in marrying him - but Willas thinks her very sad, behind her exquisite beauty. 

She seems lonely, for all the people who surround her and clamour for her attention constantly, even here on the eve of their wedding. That is something he understands well. He would like to alleviate that loneliness, and in turn have his own eased. That, more than anything, even children, is what he would like from this marriage - he never thought to have children, after his fall, knew that few lords would be comfortable selling their daughters to a cripple, and since Garlan had been courting Leo since they were children there was always going to be a new generation of Tyrells to take Highgarden when his day came.

Seeing pretty Sansa Stark twirl about the floor, all that wonderful hair catching the light and her sweet, demure smile never quite reaching her eyes, Willas wonders for the first time what his children might look like.

She weeps in his arms that night, after they've lain together, and he has no idea what to do - but then she smiles, and he understands that this is something beyond him, that some of her presumably legion demons are causing this.

He arranges for lavender roses to be left on her dressing table when he rises the following morning, and afterwards feels foolish and hopes that she thinks he merely thought the colour pretty, not that he is sometimes as bad as the rest of his family and trusts to the meanings of roses' colours, that he is as enchanted by her as the flowers suggest.

The flush in her cheeks at lunch when she thanks him ruins that hope, and yet he finds that he does not entirely mind.

 

* * *

 

It becomes a game of sorts, after that - different flowers on different days, but roses only for special occassions. He likes giving her flowers, likes the way she delights so much in beautiful things. There is an abundance of beautiful things in Highgarden, after all, and those daily bouquets are one of the few things guaranteed to make her smile.

He has grown fond of her smile, those rare smiles that touch her bright eyes.

The roses, though, he enjoys giving her those - the first time she uses her mouth on him, for example, and he returns the favour because he has always much more enjoyed giving pleasure than receiving it, he orders the brightest orange blooms that can be found delivered to her dressing table, and her cheeks are bright red when she arrives for the morning meal.

When she meets with Lord Rowan on the anniversary of his father and Loras' deaths, he sends deep pink. On the day of the anniversary of her mother and brother's deaths, he sends pale pink.

 

* * *

 

They celebrate when Naerys is born, the most beautiful child Willas has ever seen with bright blue eyes and precisely seven wispy little curls of hair the exact colour of his own, celebrate in true Highgarden style such as he doesn't think Sansa has yet seen - she arrived near the end of the festivities for their wedding, after all, but she and Naerys are the centre of these celebrations and it seems to embarrass her to have so much attention focused on her.

He smiles, though, to see how beautiful she looks with their daughter tucked securely into her arms and a deep burgundy rose tucked behind her ear.

Unfortunately, Willas sees, there are many others who are as appreciative of Sansa's beauty as he is himself, younger, more handsome men with great deeds to their names and who can dance with her as she so loves - the roses on her dressing table the morning after they say farewell to their final guests are yellow, and he wonders what meaning of the many she will attach to them.

 

* * *

 

He winds the red and white rosebuds around Naerys' cradle himself, telling their daughter stories he knows she will not be able to understand just yet but wanting her to know him, to know his voice and that he loves her near as much as he loves her mama-

The roses on Sansa's dressing table are yellow again, but this time tinged with soft reddish pink.

 

* * *

 

Mother invites Sansa and Naerys to accompany her when she goes to visit at the High Tower, and Willas thinks he will be terribly lonely until he arrives in their empty bedchamber to find a single red rose on his pillow, and the hopeful little bubble of happiness under his ribs bouys him along until they come home.

He kisses her there in front of everyone in welcome, and her smile is almost entirely in her eyes as she passes Naerys, giggling and squealing and grinning with her three teeth, into his arms.

 

* * *

 

There are sprigs of rosemary in the crystal vase when Sansa arrives to dress the morning after their return from Oldtown, which confuses her at first because it is so contrary to the usual lush bouquets of roses Willas sends her, but once she consults the book Margaery gave her she smiles, and keeps smiling when she goes to collect Naerys from her nurse.

"I once promised I'd love your papa for his own sake, my sweetling," she whispers, "but I never thought he might love me in return."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The significance and meaning of the flowers here are:
> 
> Lavender rose: enchantment  
> Orange: desire
> 
> Deep pink: gratitude, appreciation
> 
> Pale pink: sympathy
> 
> Burgundy/deep red: unconscious beauty
> 
> Yellow: jealousy
> 
> Red and white rosebuds: purity/loveliness and girlhood, but red and white together are symbolic of unity
> 
> Yellow with red: falling in love
> 
> Single rose: please everyone knows this one
> 
> Rosemary: fidelity-in-love (which is A+ bc rosemary has become a thing in my Sansa/Willas fic oops)


	18. Barriers

He meets her almost by accident, although their being at court together is of course no accident at all.

His sister is Queen, her sister foster-mother to the King, and even without that they have shared friends in the elder Sand Snakes, most particularly Obara who has few friends and so likes to keep those she has close to herself in strange circumstances. 

Allyria Dayne is not what Willas would have expected of a friend of Obara Sand’s, but then, neither is he.

And so it is that while Obara is away destroying every man who will accept her challenge in single combat - a number that increases as the days pass - that Willas finds himself in the charming company of the Lady Allyria, who never dances or plays those odd games Arianne so likes with the other women, who rides only after careful inspection of her prospective mount.

"I have a weak chest," she tells him as they sit together during the coronation feast - Margaery is radiant in the King’s arms as they dance and laugh and talk excitedly, and Willas is so happy to see her happy at last that he could sing. "It makes it difficult for me to strain myself, and some horses seem to make it worse - I cough an awful lot sometimes, surely you have noticed?"

He has, but he paid it no mind until just now. 

He learns that Allyria was betrothed to Beric Dondarrion and that she has had no offers for her hand since his eventual death - she is the same age as Willas, after all, six-and-twenty, and such an age is largely unacceptable to most men seeking a bride.

Willas does not think that such an age is a barrier to a successful marriage, particularly not when the woman in question has such a striking mind (and smile) as Allyria Dayne.


	19. Lonely, but never alone

The view of the Reach from the Peony Tower is exquisite. Sansa thinks that her mother would have liked it almost as much as Arya would have liked the flowers that lend their name to the tower itself.

She wonders if there are lovely views and sweet flowers wherever her family are. She wonders if the gods will show her mercy and allow her to join them despite the magnitude of the sin she is currently considering.

Highgarden is beautiful, truly it is, and her husband… Well, he does his best, but he is older than her, and clever and busy, and he has friends and companions and has no need of her at all, especially given that he refuses to bed her. 

She could love him, she thinks, if it were not for the gulf between them.  _You support the Lannisters,_ she thinks every time she takes his arm and sits at his side at dinner. If he and his family had not chosen to support those murderous, oath-breaking, godless creatures, she might be able to love him.

But they do support the Lannisters, and so she is here and he is there and there is naught to be done about it.

She wonders if there is some loophole that would allow him to claim Winterfell in her name even if she were dead. She hopes not - that is only one step from the Lannisters claiming it, after all.

She drops a flower from her perch on the windowsill and watches it sway downwards in the breeze. She wonders if her own descent will be so gentle, if she will drift down so softly or if she will plummet like the peach stone she tossed down only moments before.

Highgarden peaches - a fine last meal, she thinks. 

The door in the room behind her creaks, but she ignores it - this tower room she made her own not long after her arrival has many windows, and she threw them all open to draw in as much of the sweet air as she could while she feasted on her peaches. 

One final afternoon, spent all in golden, richly-scented sunshine and quiet, and then she will join Mother and Father and Robb and Arya and Bran and Rickon, and all this pain will be over.

She has a tiny carving of the Mother in her pocket - her husband gifted a set of Seven to her not long after their wedding, having noted her devotion - and she wraps her fingers tight around it. Something about her face reminds her of Sansa’s own mother, and it feels to her almost like holding her mother’s hand.

She is about to shift further out onto the windowsill when she hears another sound from the room, this the familiar thud of leather-bound crutches hitting the polished wooden floor, and she spins in surprise.

"Willas!" she says, mortified and upset that he has caught her - he will think her weak, a coward, and while she knows that he would have thought as much had he not found her before she took action, at least she would not have been alive to see the disappointment in his eyes. 

"Don’t," he says breathlessly, and his eyes are filled with tears and his face is twisted with pain, and it strikes her suddenly how much effort it must have cost him to reach this place - stairs are difficult for him, and there are over one hundred steps to her lovely room. "Please, Sansa, please don’t."

"My lord, I-"

"I saw you," he says, hobbling towards her, and she can see the caution in his every motion. "From the courtyard, sweetling, and I came as quickly as I could - please, Sansa. This is not the way forward."

Laughter bubbles through a sob in her throat, and she shakes her head.

"I am all that is left," she points out, feeling something like delirium creeping over her. "And I was never a true Stark to begin with-"

"You are as true a Stark as I am a Tyrell," he says fiercely, and she is amazed to see not even the slightest hint of disappointment in his eyes, no disgust or repulsion. "Sansa-"

"There is no place for me now," she says, edging forwards just a little and turning to face back out the window, towards the view Mother would have loved. "None at all in all the world, but elsewhere-"

Before she can slip forward the final few inches, she finds herself being tugged backwards roughly, his arms tight enough around her to leave her breathless.

“ _This_ is your place,” he gasps, his cheek pressed to hers and her back pressed to his chest. “Here, with me - do not dare believe otherwise.”

 _Oh._  She wraps her hands around his wrists and holds on tight, and lets him guide her away from the edge.

She cannot forgive that his family supported and continue to support the Lannisters, but in a way they also support  _her_ , do they not?

"I am so lonely," she whispers, turning her face to look at him.

"But you are not alone," he promises her. "You will never be alone for as long as I live, I promise."


	20. Keeping busy

There is so much to be done, and he does not think that he will ever be finished.

He sits with Uncle Garth and goes through the accounts, page by tedious page, and while he is doing that he samples the new breads that the cooks are preparing for the poor - that was one of Father’s first lessons, that loyalty must be earned and kindness earned it better than cruelty - and the fresh batch of cider Ser Tanton and Lady Fossoway have sent up from Cider Hall.

Once that is done, he fetches Mutt from the kennels and checks on the three litters of pups, listening to reports from Vyrwel as he leads his mangy old dog to the aviary to check on Solitude and the rest of his hunting birds. 

From there, he leads Mutt to the stables, this time in the company of his steward, hearing about stores and increased demands for blankets and clothing and food from the town around the walls - he gives orders for new looms to be constructed and women from the town to be instructed in their use and paid for the time they will spend in weaving new blankets for all the townsfolk, all while he checks how sweet little Snowdrop is coming along and inspects Comet’s hooves (Mutt, of course, spends the time happily walking into walls).

He attends to the gardens next, one hand on his cane and the other on Mutt’s back, an army of gardeners coming and going as he progresses along the cobbled paths, explaining about this flower and that tree, and he pauses in the orchards to sample the new breed of peaches Torwin is trying, and in the soft fruit garden to try the new blackberries, which are just the right sort of bitter.

He’s about to turn for the library, to seek out Maester Lomys once more and enquire about the progress the scholarship children have been making, when Mother finds him.

"Come, sweet boy," she says, taking him by the hand. "It is over."

And he can stop trying to occupy every single shred of his mind, because Sansa is flushed and exhausted but safe, and there is a tiny, squirming bundle lying in her arms.

"Aelinor," she says, smiling up at him. "That’s a pretty name, isn’t it?"


	21. The ties that bind

Sansa has spent longer in Highgarden than she did in King’s Landing by now, but her husband remains a stranger to her.

 

Oh, they have been married a long while now, since she was a girl of two-and-ten, a child terrified of the thorns of those beautiful Highgarden roses but less so than the gilded claws of the Lannisters, but they have never been husband and wife in anything other than name.

She is Sansa Tyrell, newly Lady of Highgarden, but it is only a cloak and a name, no act, no treatment - she is an honoured guest in this stranger’s home that is her home, and nothing can seem to connect her to her husband-by-law.

And then, Daenerys Targaryen’s dragons come to King’s Landing, where all his family save his mother and his eldest brother are, and there is nothing but wildfire.

 _Queen of ash and corpses,_ Sansa thinks as she hurries towards the sept - she was with sweet Elayne Tarly, swimming in the river, when word came, and now it has been hours since Willas found that Lord Mace and Margaery and Ser Loras are all dead, burned alive like as not, and she knows where he will be.

He has as much faith in his gods as she does in both sets of hers, although she wonders how it is that her faith has survived so much disappointment. She wonders if his will manage to do the same.

There are candles everywhere, shining bright in the gloom of evening, shining on Willas’ hair as he sits before the Stranger, on the golden embroidery of his doublet. 

He gasps when she lays her hand on his shoulder and looks up at her with wide, wild eyes, reddened with tears and somehow brighter golden-green than she has ever known them to be.

"My lady," he croaks, and when she sits beside him, he turns very firmly forward and trembles with the effort of restraining himself.

She makes the sort of sound she remembers her lady mother making when she was upset, when she turned to Mother for comfort, and slides her arm around his shoulders as best she can.

When he folds against her, clinging tight and crying harsh, angry sobs, she strokes his hair and hums under her breath, feeling terrible for it but wondering if mayhaps, finally, they might have something at last that can tie them together.


	22. Red-handed, red-faced

"This isn’t what it looks like."

Marg rolled her eyes as she buttoned her shirt back up.

"Garlan is  _married_ , Robb,” she said. “He knows that this is exactly what it looks like.”

Robb was redder than his hair when she turned back around, but not quite as red as Garlan.

"Is this legal?" he asked uncertainly. "I mean, should I report this to someone? Mom and Dad would want me to report this if it’s illegal."

"I’m eighteen, G," she said easily, standing up to button her jeans. "It’s legal everywhere except weird countries where sex is illegal before marriage-"

"Don’t need to hear my little sister talking about sex lalalalalalala," Garlan said, backing out of her room and slamming the door behind him. 

"So that was awkward," Robb said, shaking his head.

"No worse than when your little sister walked in on you going down on me," Marg assured him. "Next time we want to get freaky, we’re renting a motel room."


	23. Gender roles

She walks in from work and he’s wearing the narrow-leg trousers and the super-fitted waistcoat that she loves best - they’re a soft, rich dark brown, with dark gold pinstripes, a lovely subtle pattern that matches the colours in his eyes. 

His shirt is dark green silk, but his apron is white and lace-edged.

"This is like a weird sort of kinky," Sansa said, hanging her bag on the hook by the door. "Shouldn’t I be the one in the apron?"

"Modern sexual fantasies are gender neutral," he told her. "I  _am_ the domestic of us, after all.”

"Does that make me the dominant, then?" she teased, twisting his apron strings around her fingers and pressing herself to his back. "Or are we dispensing with traditional gender roles altogether, house husband extraordinaire?" 

"Provided you don’t expect me to wear the seamed stockings, I will fulfil every single traditionally female gender role you can think of."

She laughed, pressing her forehead between his shoulder blades and shifting as close as she could.

"Mum and Dad took the kids for the night," he said softly, reaching around to tug her under his arm. "Which means I am yours to command for the night, mistress."

"Mm," she sighed, "I love it when you get all submissive on me."

They forgot about dinner until the smoke alarm went off.

"These apron strings," Sansa said. "I can think of some more… Diverting uses for them than just holding your apron in place."

"Is that so?" he murmured, switching off the hob and reaching for his crutches. "Lead on, darling. Lead on."


	24. Ripped tights

"We shouldn’t be here," she feels him say against the side of her neck, but his body presses tighter to hers and counters the cold of the wall of her back, so she doesn’t really care.

"But we  _are_ here,” she reminds him, “so we should make the most of it.”

They never have enough time for anything, because they see each other so rarely and the distance between Oldtown and White Harbour is  _vast,_ but when they do see one another, well…

He doesn’t bother with the finesse of slipping his hand under her knickers - he just shoves them aside and strokes her, just right, just how she likes, so she pulls open his trousers and wraps her hand around his cock just as he curls two fingers up into her.

"Condom," she gasps, "please tell me you have a condom-"

"Wallet," he grunts, teeth catching on her ear lobe, "arse pocket, hurry up-"

It always takes too long, and never lasts long enough. She’s the right height that all he has to do, once she’s gotten the condom on him, is to lift her leg up high around his hip and sink home, and  _then_  it’s a mad rush and a desperate effort to not get caught as they come and come down.

"Visit sooner," she whispers as they pull apart, and then it’s back to the party and back to video calls and sexting.


	25. Handmaiden to the Queen

"In here, Lady Sansa," she hears the whisper, and when she turns to look there is only a shaft of light on the dark corridor, hinting at an open door.

Queen Aelinor awaits her within, resplendent in soft sping green with her heavy hair falling about her shoulders in tumbling curls.

"Close the door, sweetling," she says, smiling invitingly - she is as alike to Ser Garlan as her sister is to Ser Loras, and accordingly she is sweet and gentle-mannered and kind, and so, so beautiful. "And the bolt, my pet, that’s it."

She feels half in a dream, as she takes Aelinor’s hand and curls under the soft covers beside her. Queen Aelinor is as tall as Sansa herself, her hair mostly dark brown but streaked liberally with the same silver as her mother’s, and Sansa does not think she has ever met a lady so lovely.

"Like this," she whispers, and Sansa sighs at the taste of her mouth, the warmth of her strong, slender hands through her filmy nightshift. "Is that good, sweetling?"

"Wonderful," Sansa breathes, and Aelinor chuckles. 

"Then come here," she says, all affection and a warmth Sansa half recognises - she sometimes feels it, when they are all at court and Aelinor sits by her royal husband’s side, as tall and lovely as King Renly is but twice as wonderful. 

They fit together like a song, but Sansa knows all the songs and she has never heard one about a lady and her queen. She thinks that this is a grave omission.

Aelinor’s breasts are full and much larger than Sansa’s own, warm to the touch and velvet soft, and the Queen purrs in the base of her throat when Sansa presses shy kisses to the smooth skin to repay a favour given a dozen dozen times already.

"My sweet girl," she sighs, sliding Sansa’s smallclothes down her legs and sliding down the bed after them. "My sweet, sweet little wolf."


	26. More roses than she knows what to do with

Margaery sends her beautiful gowns in greens and blues and silver, embroidered all of them with delicate patterns of roses with the occasional decorative wolf.  
  
Loras smiles and tucks a yellow rose behind her ear and says that they are Willas' favourites, and that he likes how happy she makes his brother.  
  
Garlan descends on her with wreaths and bouquets while Leonette looks on and laughs, and it's he who names her their winter rose.  
  
Lady Olenna huffs and murmurs and says that she supposes she's quite pretty in a way, pretty enough for Highgarden, mayhaps.  
  
Lord Mace and Lady Alerie leave her in peace with a patch of garden to make her own, if she so desires.  
  
Willas laughs at all of the roses his family showers Sansa in and, when the time comes for him to give her a gift, he actually considers that perhaps what his family considerz spoiling her and what she actually wants are two very different things, and so he dumps a pup with a floppy ear into her lap one evening while she readies herself for dinner, and forbids her to give it a name involving flowers of any sort.


	27. A wedding

She arrives at Highgarden hidden in a deep cloak, wearing the clothes of a serving girl, but as soon as she pushes back the hood and shakes out her hair, she notices people watching her. Red hair is rare in the Reach, Margaery told her, and that must be why they're looking.  
  
Willas is standing at the top of the steps, eyes wide in his handsome face. He looks more like Ser Loras than she expected, but softer, somehow. He's- He's lovely, she supposes, and he kisses her hand and offers her his arm, and Sansa begins to hope that mayhaps this will work.

Then he tells her of their special guests, expected any day now, and it's all she can do not to scream.

 

 

*

"You'll be safe here," Robb tells her, walking her through the gardens to the tiny godswood with his arm around her shoulders. "And it's beautiful, I suppose."  
  
"Do you think you can win the war?" Sansa dares to ask. It certainly looks like he should - the North, the Riverlands and the Reach altogether, with envoys sent to Stannis Baratheon? How could even the mighty Lannisters stand against such a host?  
  
Robb makes a face and sighs.  
  
"I'll be married soon as well," he tells her. "To a Frey of the Crossing."  
  
"Mother mentioned that," Sansa says. "Have you met her yet?"  
  
"I don't even know which one she is yet," he admits. "But soon. You'll have another sister then," he adds, and she can see that he regrets it - they still don't know what happened to Arya, after all

*

"The last Stark to wear a crown of winter roses brought the kingdoms to war," Sansa says when Willas asks if she likes the twisted wreath of blue flowers. His eyes smile more than his mouth, something she likes - you can't lie with your eyes, can't fake a smile.  
  
"Mayhaps, but I have it on good authority that Lady Lyanna's eyes did not match the flowers," he teases gently. Grey Wind's head is resting in his lap, the direwolf's eyes closed in lazy contentment as Willas scratches between his ears, and Sansa wonders at that comfort with such a beast.  
  
"He likes you," she points out, nodding to the wolf. "Robb says he doesn't like anyone anymore."  
  
"I'm not a threat," Willas says with a shrug. "Given how he behaves towards you, he sees you as a packmate, and I've quite clearly just become your mate. Therefore, not a threat. Family, I'd say."  
  
Sansa's chest tightens with something she doesn't understand then, but before she can say a word, Robb is sweeping her onto the dancefloor.  
  
"Smile, Sansa!" he cheers. "It's your wedding day!"  
  
She smiles and he laughs, and then he gestures towards Willas, now with Garlan at his side.  
  
"Grey Wind seems fond of him," he says.  
  
"He's a good judge of character," Sansa agrees. "I miss Lady sometimes."  
  
"There's talk that there's a direwolf in the Riverlands," he confides with a grin. "I hear Nymeria was set loose...?"  
  
Sansa's breath catches. She's never quite given up on the foolish idea that so long as she hears rumours of Nymeria living in the Riverlands, Arya must be alive. She thinks that mayhaps she understands just how important their wolves are than any of the others do, because she lost Lady.  
  
"Keep Grey Wind with you," she pleads impulsively. "I know you said that Lord Frey doesn't like him-"  
  
"Sansa-"  
  
"As a wedding gift to me," she suggests. "Please, Robb?"

*

 

Much later, when Stannis has burned and Robb has given up his crown, when the Mother of Dragons and her nephews reclaim Westeros for House Targaryen, Sansa and Willas visit at Winterfell.  
  
"Grey Wind saved me," Robb murmurs, shaking his head at the sight of his son and Sansa's crawling together on the hearthrug. Rickard Stark is a bigger, heavier child than Edwyn Tyrell, but Sansa is certain that her son will be the more handsome. "They were going to kill us all, Sansa, every last one of us, Mother included, but Grey Wind sniffed out- Well, I don't know what exactly, but it set the Freys enough on edge to ruin their plans."  
  
Sansa leans her head on her brother's shoulder and watches her husband and goodsister play with her son and nephew, and wonders what might have come after the war had she not insisted on Robb keeping Grey Wind with him.


	28. Black Widow

They watch her, these new courtiers, these new powers of the realm, and they laugh.

Margaery has never been as vain as others have thought - oh, she knows well that she is pretty, beautiful even, but she has never been silly enough to think that her beauty alone is enough to bring her what she wants.

She married Renly both to keep his and Loras’ secret safe, for Loras’ sake, and to get what she wanted then. What she wanted then was a crown, power and influence and a chance to see something more than Highgarden, something more than just what her family allowed her to see.

But Renly died, whether on the blade of a shadow or the Maid of Tarth (a maid no longer, but married and left to eternally vouch for her notorious vow-breaking husband’s changed ways), and Margaery was left once more at the mercy of her father’s ever changing whims.

She despised Joffrey from the off, his greedy eyes and twisting mouth and the way he watched Sansa Stark even though she was no longer his to watch. Sansa was the girl Margaery might have been if not for her grandmother, aware of her beauty but not of how to use it. Margaery pitied her, the broken Northern girl, but not enough to fight for her when the Lannisters tied her to the Imp - Sansa’s claim to Winterfell was not worth damaging the alliance with the Lannisters (although Margaery did regret losing the first girl she thought might have been worthy of Willas).

She was relieved when Joffrey died, sick though that might have been, and did not mourn him even as a friend, like Renly. She did not mourn him at all, really, except that without him alive his little brother was King and Margaery was a Queen Dowager, just like Mad Cersei.

But then Father was made Hand and Grandmother steered him toward her desired outcome, which was Margaery becoming Queen to a third King.

By then, all Margaery wanted was peace, but she smiled and played her part and used her beauty and charm to influence sweet little Tommen to her family’s advantage. 

People started to whisper then, she remembers, Queen to three Kings and mother to none, and while Loras would have leaped to her defence he was away dying on Dragonstone and she was alone without any of her brothers to stand between her and the cruelty of those who would bring down House Tyrell.

The dragons came, and she was smuggled home to Highgarden with Grandmother and Father and the rest, but without Tommen. When word came of his death, she wept in earnest for the boy who had been more little brother than he would ever be husband to her and only Willas, who knew what it was to be left behind, seemed to understand.

The Queen is as beautiful as she is terrible, Margaery knows, ferociously strong and surprisingly wise for her years, binding House Tyrell to the throne with her Blackfyre nephew’s cousin - Sansa reaches Highgarden eventually, Margaery laughs until she cries, although more broken than any of them could have dreamed - and scourging the realm of Lannisters save the Imp who sits as her Hand. 

There are whispers of this marriage or that, Margaery and a hundred names, but none of them ever come forward. She remains thrice-widowed, still a maid, a curse to any and every man who lays claim to her hand and her heart, and she grows angrier and angrier as she is called to court and forced to watch the way people laugh behind their hands even as they shy away from her.

She cannot quite hate them, though, because this is a hell of her own making. Gone are her aspirations of power, of glory, replaced only by soft-edged dreams of a warm embrace and the weight of a babe in her arms. She is so damnably lonely, loneliness edged with bitterness when she sees Willas and Garlan with their wives and sons, because she knows that her brothers would welcome her into their homes if only she could bend her pride and accept that every kindness is tinged with pity.

She takes to wearing widows weeds, ignoring the voice in the back of her head that tells her black makes her look sallow, takes to avoiding court as best she can, attending only when she absolutely must. It hurts to think that once she was the brightest jewel in the crown of King’s Landing, and now she is barely the tarnished silver of the oldest fixings. 

She sits in the gardens when the snows melt, the lingering chill in the air bracing, pinkening her cheeks and tingling deep down in her lungs, and it is there that she finds she has company.

“Black does not suit you, Lady Margaery.”

She smiles faintly as Jon Blackfyre takes the bench opposite hers, on the far side of the fountain.

“It was never my colour, your highness. It rather becomes you, though.”

“It was always my colour,” he says, smiling wistfully at some memory. “If black is not to your tastes, why wear it?”

“You know my reputation, sire. What man would remove me from my widow’s weeds when I am such an omen of death?”

He tilts his head back and purses his lips thoughtfully. She can see the silver-white line across his throat, the wound they say killed him only for him to come back in the fire.

“Death is not always so final as some might think,” he says enigmatically, looking over at her as if in challenge. “Mayhaps we need a braver class of man about court.”

The next day, Margaery wears dark green and sits with Jon Blackfyre at dinner.


	29. Tiddly

Margaery giggles and slumps against him, her hair falling over his shoulder and smelling of roses.

“You’ve got such a pretty smile, Snow,” she sighs, looking up at him with big, innocent eyes. Jon knows Marg well enough to know that she’s far from innocent, and that Bambi smile always makes him laugh.

“Thanks, I think?”

She twists a hand into his hair and pulls his face down to hers. She’s drunker than he thought, because Marg is usually a lot more subtle than this.

She also usually makes sure there’s only a hint of cleavage on show, and if he glances down he’s going to get a lot more than a hint.

“I bet that smile of yours tastes good, Snow,” she slurs, leaning in so their noses bump.

Jon rolls his eyes.

“C’mon, Tyrell,” he sighs, standing up and pulling her with him. “If Loras catches you snogging me while you’re drunk he won’t talk to either of us for a week. Let’s get you home.”


	30. The Mystery Knight

On the morning of Sansa’s nameday, she woke to find Willas in the privy, groaning pitifully as he brought up the remains of last night’s dinner.

“You go on,” he implores once she had cleaned his face and helped him back to bed in a fresh nightshirt. “Go, enjoy your day - do not let me ruin it for you.”

She dressed and let Marian pin her hair, watching him worriedly in her dressing table mirror the whole time. He seemed well enough, his complexion as healthy as usual and his eyes not hooded and glassy as they usually were when he was ill, but he was so miserable that Sansa felt that she had no choice but to let him rest for the day.

“Sleep well, my love,” she murmured, kissing his brow (was he feverish, or was that her imagination?) as she took her leave. 

He had arranged for a tourney - just a small one - because her nameday and their wedding anniversary fell close together, and because he’d been inviting his bannermen to Highgarden to celebrate their good news - it was not every day, after all, that he got to announce that his heir was due to be born in five short months.

Sansa opened the tourney herself, Margaery and Alerie sitting on either side of her, and-

“Is that Gardener?” she asked, watching as one of the men (she still didn’t know all the colours and sigils, she and Willas had only been married a year, after all, and this man is wearing, for the Reach, very plain armour indeed) rode away on a horse that looked suspiciously like Willas’ horse. “Margaery, tell me he didn’t-“

“I shan’t say a word,” Margaery said with a smile, but Sansa saw the tension in her goodsister’s shoulders and knew the truth.

“I will cripple his other leg myself,” she swore, beginning to rise from her seat only to halt at the touch of Alerie’s hand on her arm.

“You will embarrass him if you go now,” her goodmother says quietly, Willas’ green-brown eyes serious in her soft face. “Garlan is with him, he will not allow Willas to suffer any great injury. Sit, Sansa - stress is bad for the babe.”

If stress was bad for the babe, then surely Sansa should have left, because watching Willas joust was one of the most terribly stressful things she had ever experienced - he told her, one night after a round of terrible dreams that left him shouting in remembered pain, of the tilt that crippled him, and she had not been able to enjoy tourneys the same way since, borrowed memories of his agony spoiling the pageantry - because she was awaiting his fall, awaiting the moment when the maesters told her that her husband would never walk again-

But that moment did not come. 

Instead, Willas rode easily into the final, facing Garlan, for gods’ sakes, and when Garlan fell all too readily, Willas laughed and reached down from Gardener’s back to help his brother up as soon as he’d tossed aside his lance and torn off him helm. 

His hair was stuck to his forehead when he came to Sansa with the crown of golden-yellow roses to name her his Queen of Love and Beauty, but she was so relieved that he hadn’t fallen that she ignored the crown and leaned out of the box to kiss him and make certain that he truly was well and unhurt and smiling at her.


	31. Alayne

The others do not see it, because they do not know Sansa well enough, but Willas sees. Willas knows.

There are days when Sansa, his Sansa, is hidden behind a… a haze, he supposes. A haze by the name of Alayne Stone, with Petyr blasted Baelish’ maker’s mark emblazoned across her glassy eyes.

Margaery suspects, as does Jon when they come to visit, but they do not know.

Willas is the one who must coax Sansa out of hiding, who must dance around her slips and “my lords” and evasive answers. He has not danced in years, not since he was crippled, but he relearns the near-forgotten steps of this game at which Alayne is even more skilled than Sansa to save his wife.

Because it is most definitely a question of saving her. If he does not bring her back, Alayne may win, and Willas is not sure he could survive Sansa’s loss. Worse, he sees the way Alayne looks at Leyton and Ned, playing on the hearthrug in the nursery with their little wooden horses, and at Liselle, sleeping in her cradle that Sansa twists all around with ribbons, and he fears for his and Sansa’s children.

Sometimes, Alayne will surface and look askance at the auburn tumble of Sansa’s hair. Sometimes Willas will lean in to kiss Sansa and Alayne will recoil in shock. Sometimes Ned, ever the quieter of their boys, will come to Sansa with upraised arms and Alayne will turn away.

Sometimes Willas will wake up and turn to Sansa to say good morning, and Alayne will be cowering back against the pillows in horror. That is almost as difficult as trying to explain to the boys why Mama is not always herself.

He can always bring Sansa back, with a gentle touch or a murmured reassurance, but he lives in fear of the day when Alayne wins and his wife is lost to him.

If he did not love Sansa so much, he does not think he could bear it.


	32. Hogsmeade

Willas loved Hogsmeade, but he hated the walk there and back. Oh, he’d loved it before that absolute bastard Snape had cursed the Bludger that the Slytherin team had used to take him out of the game (not forever, although nobody not on the Hufflepuff team knew that quite yet - it took more than a buggered leg to keep Willas Tyrell off a broom) but now, his leg ached every time he had to shift his weight to accommodate for the uneven road surface.

Sansa didn’t seem to mind that he had to walk so slowly, though, so he ambled along at his own pace with her gloved hand tucked into his elbow, the sharp not-rosemary scent of her hair overlying the cold, and told her embarrassing stories about Loras and Margaery. She returned with equally embarrassing stories about Robb and Jon which made him laugh so loudly that Rhaenys and the rest, a good twenty yards further up the road, turned back to look askance.

“Where would you like to go, Sansa?” he asked when they eventually reached the village, tucking her scarf closer around her neck (the bronze and blue were lovely, striking against her flaming hair and pale skin, bringing out the startling colour of her eyes).

She bit her lip and, he thought, blushed, although it was hard to tell with the way the cold air was turning her cheeks and ears and the tip of her nose bright pink.

“Honeydukes?” she suggested, and he grinned.

“I’m already embarrassed at the thought of having you along for my sweet-buying expedition,” he admitted sheepishly, hobbling against the wind towards the already-heaving confectioners. “Although my being notoriously crippled does mean everyone takes care not to bump into me in crowded areas, and we shall be guaranteed a table if you’d like to join me for a Butterbeer in the Three Broomsticks afterwards?”

She smiled as he held the door open for her, waited patiently as he carefully wiped the bottom of his cane on the doormat, and then made straight for the caramels.

“A girl after my own heart,” he teased, and she smiled so brilliantly over her shoulder as she gathered three boxes of iced caramels into her arms that he had to laugh again.

 

* * *

 

 

They did find a table without any trouble at all in the Three Broomsticks, even though it was packed and Madame Rosmereta was run off her sparkly turquoise feet.

Sansa, apparently, became very giggly and pass-remarkable when she drank Butterbeer (he saw Rhaenys’ influence there), but even her good humour faded when the Slytherins stalked in, Snape among them.

Willas tensed and shifted his bad leg further under the table without thinking, and it wasn’t until Sansa - blushing a magnificent shade of red just in the apples of her cheeks and, oddly, in her temples - laid her hand over his that he realised he’d clenched his fists.

“One more week,” he breathed, nodding to himself and smiling when Sansa looked at him curiously. “Then I’ll show the whole school that that bloody Bludger didn’t mark the end of my playing career.”

 

* * *

 

 

The following week, for the first match of the season - Hufflepuff vs. Slytherin - Sansa was bedecked in black and gold and badgers, and she cheered louder than anyone when Willas made his victory lap, Snitch held triumphantly aloft in his left hand.


	33. Loss

His hands are shaking. Garlan might listen, if Willas were of a mind to speak, but as it stands it is all he can do to remain upright.

He is aware, somewhere distant and removed from his present reality, which extends no further than the freshly-filled grave before him and the warm, unknowning weight of Leo in his arms, that there are people sympathising with him. That's what people do at funerals, after all, they sympathise with the spouse, with the siblings and children and parents, if there are any surviving.

People sympathise as best they can, but they grimace and move on quickly to Sansa's brothers and sister, standing along beside him, when he stares through them all.

Dad holds an umbrella up when it starts to rain, and puts an arm around Willas' shoulders and guides him to the car. He limps - he should probably have his cane, but holding Leo was exponentially more important than his leg today, and besides, the pain is inconsequential when compared to that damned grave.

He holds Leo, because he promised Sansa that he would look after their baby - she didn't even get to know whether it was a boy or a girl - and he isn't really sure that he trusts anyone or anything else now, not after Sansa's been taken from him.

He feeds Leo at the right times - Garlan appears with warm bottles just as he lifts his head to look for them - but otherwise just sits in the corner with his son (only his, not theirs because she's gone, isn't she, and he doesn't know how he's supposed to bear that). Mum sits with him for a little while, but mostly it's Dad who sits half between him and the rest of the room, guiding people away with an unusually quiet word and a wave.

He puts Leo down for the night and wanders back down the stairs and outside, to the little wooden bench under the amaryllis trellises in the western gardens. It's still raining, but he doesn't mind getting wet - it was raining the day he asked Sansa to marry him, after all, right here on this bench, and the day she told him that she was pregnant, but the sun was splitting the stones the evening the police came to see him, and sunny all that summer when the words "traffic accident" and "medically induced coma" and then, finally, "no brain activity" ruined Willas' life.

Garlan sits beside him without a word, and he can hear Loras and Margaery murmuring between themselves nearby.

"What do I do now?" he whispers, and he's not entirely sure if he's crying until the first sob hurts his throat. "Gods, Garlan, what do I do?"


	34. Hidden from view

Willas, Sansa discovered, was a very affectionate drunk.

"You smell exquisite," he murmured, arm around her shoulders as he nuzzled into her neck, breathing deep. "Absolutely delicious."

There was a predatory purr in his voice, one she'd never heard before but that made her stomach swoop just as much as the sudden warmth of his hand on her bare knee. 

"What would you do if I got on the floor right now," he continued, mouth ghosting over her pulse, her jaw, her ear, "and pushed up your dress, and pulled down your pretty little knickers, and-"

"We are in public," she hissed, catching his wrist before he could slip his hand higher up her thigh. "Willas, wait-"

"We're only barely in public," he pointed out, teeth scraping over the point of her shoulder. "We're well hidden from the rest of the room, and besides, I know just where we can go if you're worried-"

"I'm not having sex with you in your father's office," she insisted, voicing jumping when he flicked his tongue right along the edge of her jaw. "Not again. I can't even look at him without wanting to die-"

"He doesn't know," Willas promised her, reaching behind him for his cane. "And he won't know when we do it tonight, I swear."

Sansa took advantage of his distraction to check her phone, which had been buzzing intermittently for the past ten minutes. She had fifteen texts from Arya and seven from Margie, all some variation of  _Tell Willas to calm down before Dad sees._

"I thought you said we were hidden!" she exclaimed, horrified because  _oh my God he had his hand under my dress just now._

"We are!"

Then he looked towards the room at large.

"Damn, so we're not," he admitted. "Does this mean Dad's office is a more attractive proposition now?"


	35. Songbird

He’s perfected the walk from his solar to the nursery in silence, because Sansa never sings when she thinks someone other than Edwyn and Naerys might hear, and Willas is sure that that is a travesty.

There is something about her face when she sings to their children - something about the way she smiles with her eyes closed, Edwyn curled against her side and Naerys cradled to her breast, the way she seems to shed the worries that she carries with her always (he knows that his leg has been causing her worry since the winds began to blow cold again, and he hates that he is a burden to her).

Willas loves to watch Sansa sing for their children, but it breaks his heart that she is still too afraid to draw attention to herself outside the nursery to sing anywhere else.


	36. To the moon and back

Everyone had laughed when she’d run around the house with Mom’s big clear plastic mixing bowl on her head, shouting that she was on her way to the moon.

But she was here now, part of the first fleet of scientists to work in the recently finished lunar lab, and…

And it was lonely, really. She got on well with everyone else, of course, they had to get on well, but looking out the windows and seeing the world so far away…

"It’s something, isn’t it?" Willas asked quietly, coming to stand beside her with his hands in his pockets. "The view, I mean."

"You’ve been up here before, haven’t you?" she asked in return. "I’d’ve thought you’d be used to it by now."

He shook his head and laughed, heavy chestnut-brown curls falling into his eyes.

"Never," he said. "I don’t think it’s possible to get used to being so far away from everything you love."

Then he smiled and took her hand, a shy little smile that made her heart beat faster.

"Well," he amended. "Almost everything."


	37. A fever for you I just can't explain

Winterfell bears its scars well, as do the Starks who call it home.

Willas half wishes that he might bear his own scars with such good grace as Lord Stark in particular, and feels pathetic for brooding so over his bad leg when young Bran Stark has no legs at all, to all intents and purposes.

The Queen is of the opinion that the rest of the Starks have little enough to complain about, but then, her chambers for the duration of their stay are the finest in the keep, while Willas' are nearer to the family's own. Near enough to hear the screaming and sobbing that leaks under their doors at night.

* * *

 

 

Winterfell itself is near as fascinating as the negotiations are mindnumbingly boring, though - so he spends his afternoons and evenings wandering the long shadows with two scarves wrapped around his knee under his breeches, leaning only as heavy as he dares on his crutches lest they sink into the soft ground where there is bare earth, not flat flagstones.

It is during one of these explorations that he finds his ruin.

 

* * *

 

He has wandered the godswood several times by now - they have been here over a fortnight, and he sometimes needs more solitude than can be found within the keep, even in the chambers that are his for the time being - and, given how long negotiations had run today, given how close to losing her temper the Queen had come and how close to the same Lord Stark had come, he needs solitude very much just now.

But for the first time, he is not the sole occupant when he reaches the clearing about the pale weirwood.

He cannot find words beyond a stammered apology, and it is not until he is halfways back along the path to the keep that he realises it is likely because he's halfways out of his mind, too, with embarrassment and lust, for Lady Sansa is a rare beauty even fully clothed, but to see her in just a flimsy shift, with her bright hair damp and darkened and clinging to her shoulders, well.

He slams the door of his room behind him and leans back against it, tugging his glove off with his teeth so he might reach down into his breeches and relieve the ache. _Too long without bedding a single soul,_ he tells himself, _too long since there was anyone I wished to bed_ , and he tries not to dwell on the graceful arch of Lady Sansa's body as it had been when he hobbled into the clearing, with her head back and her eyes closed in a quiet sort of bliss.

* * *

 

 

It happens again, and again, and again.

He desperately hopes she does not think him some sort of deviant, a fool thinking himself to be Florian peeping at the beautiful Jonquil in her maidenpool, but it seems that no matter when he enters the godswood, no matter that he comes at different times every day in hopes of avoiding her, he is attempting the impossible.

She is always there, in just that sheer shift and the slightly misty water, all overlarge eyes and wonderful hair.

He has started to dream of those eyes, dark and fogged with pleasure, and that hair spread out flaming over pale linens and dark furs (and what if might look like if he buried his face in it, and if it is matched by the hair between her endless legs).

He has never been so ashamed of himself, and resolves not to enter the godswood even once more during his stay at Winterfell. He might emulate Arianne, and spend his evenings curled up near the fire in mountains of furs, or even Lord Stark, who spends his time in the maester's tower when he is not at work in his solar.

He might even offer his assistance and experience to the master of horse. Anything at all to get away from her and the temptation he hates himself for wishing to succumb to.

And then, he slips.

* * *

 

 

The pain is searing, absolutely _blinding_ , but it is also both wholly familiar and a welcome distraction.

A distraction, that is, until the maester suggests that he soak in the hot pools in the godswood - there are salts in the water, naturally occurring here as they do not anywhere else in the realm, that will do the aching muscles good.

As soon as he is left alone, he cannot but take himself in hand - not when all he can see is Lady Sansa, the dark ends of her hair spiralling and spreading in the water while the bright length of it catches the light through the trees, not while he can remember how pink her nipples seemed through the fine cloth of her shift, just as pink as her rosebud mouth when it became a neat little O of surprise when she noticed him.

A month they've been in Winterfell, a fortnight he's suffered this torture, and yet it is she that he spends most of his time with, she who sits by him during the tense morning meetings and aids him in keeping the peace between their more volatile colleagues.

He remembers, after his body has calmed and he has found a ledge of stone in the wall of the pool just low enough for him to sit and be submerged to his chin, that his grandmother once thought to wed him to Lady Sansa, before she was wed to the Imp.

"What a change of pace."

He startles at the sound of her soft voice, and is thankful for the murk of the water, that it hides both his cock and his leg from her view - he is not sure, currently, which would cause him more embarrassment.

"I, however, have no intention of scurrying away like a frightened doe," she says, a teasing lilt that he has heard a handful of times during this past month lifting her voice.

His mouth goes as dry as his eyes do wide as she sheds her furs and cloak, as she unlaces her gown and peels it off, as she kicks off her boots. Her shift is not so sheer while dry, but the water soaks up it quickly when she eases herself into the water feet-first, and he is half mad with the want to touch her and the knowledge that he should not, cannot, must not.

He does not know where to look. Anywhere at all save at her seems a good idea, but she makes that difficult by drifting close enough for her legs to brush his.

"Did the maester tell you that you ought rub the injury while in the water?" she asks, and her gaze is soft with innocence but her fingers are drifting up and down his thigh, and even under the water his skin feels as though it has caught light. "I may be of some assistance, my lord."

Her hands are stronger than he might have expected, firm and quick as she kneads the ruined flesh of his bad knee, and he is only glad that the pain suppresses his arousal.

Her mouth is hot and sweet and sudden on his, and her hair is heavier and thicker than he thought it would be, but just as soft between his fingers.

"I sought my own pleasure that first day," she breathes, head tilted back and eyes dark and fogged with pleasure as he kisses her neck, greedily trying to learn as much of her as he can, but equally greedy to discover what she looks and sounds and tastes like during her pleasure. "And found it while you were watching me, my lord - I have not been able to think since for wanting you."

He cannot help but groan and pull her closer, feeling those pert breasts pressing tight to his chest as she hooks her foot around his good leg, and then her cunt, hot even in the warmth of the water, pressing hard to his cock - he cannot breathe, he’s certain of it.

And then, as quickly as she was there she is gone, long limbs splayed in the water as she floats back towards the far edge of the pool, towards her gown and cloak and furs.

“Oh, my lord,” she laughs, “surely you did not think it would be so easy as that?”

He dreams of kissing between those long, pale legs that night, but the shame of those dreams is gone now that he knows that she wants him, too.

* * *

 

 

Were he at home, at Highgarden, he would woo her with flowers and gifts and singers and days on the river, but here, he has only himself, a few books, and his horse.

Given that he has never been particularly confident of his ability to woo anyone even with all the bounty of Highgarden at his disposal, it is unsurprising that he spends every free moment he has for the next two days fretting in the library. He does not know why - he has always found comfort in books, for the adventures he makes while reading that he cannot have in reality - but he hides there, hoping against hope that his sanctuary will not be breached.

And then she is there.

She looks almost as anxious as he feels, arms crossed below her breasts and her lower lip caught between her teeth.

“I hope I did not… I hope I was not discourteous the other day, my lord,” she says, not taking the seat opposite him even when he gestures for her to do so. “I did not mean to cause offence, and apologise if I did so.”

“You did not,” he assures her, heaving himself to his feet to stand before her. “You _could_ not, my lady, I promise you that.”

He thinks it might be true - he is utterly taken by her quiet, soft charm, and would like to know more of her mind just as much as he would her body.

She blushes deep pink (the same pink as her nipples through her shift) and ducks her head, as though embarrassed.

“My lord,” she says, admonishment and affection in one, and his heart soars - he was so worried that by not trying to woo her, he would lose the chance to do so, and yet was too frightened to actually try and win her affections. “I would like to- to ask if you would care to dine with me tonight? In my chambers?”

The Starks closet themselves away every night for the evening meal, and Willas wonders if Sansa Stark is just as taken with him as he is with her for her to break with that tradition. The thought thrills him, and he flushes just as pink as her.

“I would be honoured, my lady.”

* * *

 

Her chambers bear the same scars as the rest of Winterfell, the well-scrubbed scorch marks on the stone, the too-new furniture - she explains the strange, dark wood that Willas does not recognise as coming from the Summer Isles, a gift from House Manderly to honour the betrothal between her brother and one of their ladies - and the lack of heirlooms, of tapestries and fiddly statuettes and ornaments, such as he knows litter the shelves and tables in his mother’s and grandmother’s and sister’s rooms at Highgarden.

He sorrows for her, that she has lost even those traces of her family, but her smiles are wholly sincere as they sit together, not at opposite sides of her dining table but around a corner from one another, close enough that her knee brushes against his constantly while they are eating.

“I was rather forward the other day,” she says quietly, once the dishes have been cleared away and they are alone by the fire. Again, rather than sitting opposite one another, they are in armchairs that were arranged side-by-side, her leaning across the arm of her own and onto his, animated and bright as he has never known her to be in the company of others. She is enthralling and, he hopes, enthralled as the night wears on and their conversation never falters.

He has always been quick to fall in love - Mother calls him her sweet romantic, Garlan calls him a romantic fool - but this feels different, somehow, mayhaps because she seems to return his feelings at least  little, which he does not ever remember happening before.

He came here to find some advantage for the Reach in the North rejoining the realm, and because the Queen left him with no choice, and for the first time he is truly glad that he did not send Garlan in his place.

Her mouth is still hot and sweet, but he takes his leave before he can draw her into his lap and draw her skirts up about her waist. She told him to woo her, and he intends on doing so - wooing and fucking do not go hand in hand, not as Willas was taught, and so he will put off the latter until he has achieved the former.

He prays that she is easily wooed. He is not sure he can survive much more of this temptation.

* * *

 

As it turns out, all he need do to woo her successfully is to walk through the godswood as he has done every day of his stay and find her in the hot springs.

She is not wearing her shift, and she is flushed rose-pink all over. He takes it as an omen, a good one to counter all the bad ones that have darkened these past years.

“Consider me thoroughly wooed, my lord,” she says firmly, holding out a hand. “Join me?”

He has no will, none at all, for before he even realises it he is sitting on the edge of the pool and allowing her to help tug off his boots and socks and breeches while he shoves off cloak and furs and tugs his heavy tunic over his head, then his shirt, and then he is sliding into the water with her, pulling her into his arms and pressing her as tight to him as he can.

Her skin is soft, and warm, and perfect. The scars that litter her back and shoulders and ribs are silver-smooth under his fingers, and while part of him wishes he might rend anyone who dared hurt her limb from limb, part of him wishes to see the scars, to see the proof of the strength that is so visible in the straight line of her back and shoulders when she sits at her brother’s side and faces down the Mother of Dragons.

She clutches him tight, one hand twisted in his hair and the other digging into his shoulder blade, and he is certain that this is the gods’ penance for ruining his leg. He cannot imagine how else he might have caught Sansa’s interest.

She breathes his name when he moves to kiss the pulse that flutters under her ear, and he tries to pull her closer - it is impossible, of course - even though he knows he ought to push her away.

_I am weak,_ he thinks. “I should not,” he says, sliding his hand down her back to cup her arse and press her hips hard to his own.

“You should,” she tells him, her voice faint and ferocious, “truly, you should.”

“But your virtue-”

Her laughter rings out like silver bells, high and bright and sweet.

“Oh, my lord,” she giggles, tucking her face against his shoulder, “you must be the only person in the realm to believe that my late husband did not have his wicked way with me. Who could doubt that I was lying when I said the Lannister Imp had not fucked his pretty little bride, after all?”

It never occurred to him that she might be lying, and he cannot pretend that he is not relieved that she was never truly Tyrion Lannister’s. _Mine_ echoes somewhere in the back of his mind, and he relishes it even as he pushes it aside.

She hooks her leg around his hip, this time, balancing on her tip-toes, and her cunt is once more hot and perfect against his cock. He cannot imagine how he will survive with her cunt _around_ his cock.

She gasps at the press of the poolside to her back, and he takes advantage of her distraction to catch her thighs and lift them both high around his hips, the better to press closer, and he is _so close_ to being inside her that he thinks he might die.

She leans forward, mouth to his ear, and whispers _“I touched myself, thinking of you, before coming here.”_

She is tight and utterly perfect as he sinks into her, all heat and home, and he dredges up some untouched well of restraint to ensure he hurts her no more than he absolutely must.

She whimpers, hips rocking, and his restraint disappears.

* * *

 

Willas manages to hold the door without losing his balance so Lord Stark might wheel himself into the room, and lets it close itself so he might cross the room to join his host.

“My sister wishes to wed you,” Lord Stark says without preamble, old eyes bright in his young face. “Do you accept her suit?”

Willas laughs at that, laughs helplessly because everything about his relationship with Sansa, if it can be called that, is utterly backwards.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from 'Move' by Little Mix. For Riana1, who prompted these dumbs in the hot springs an eternity ago on tumblr ;)


	38. Easter, 1916.

_[I rebelled, they cut me down/Now you must raise our child with dignity](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLZRWNdGCUc) _

He hadn’t meant to be there, not at all. Will had never trusted Pearse and had begged Loras to think more cannily about it all, but he’d always disliked MacNeill. It made sense that Loras would like a fool like Paddy Pearse.

Not that it had made a blind bit of difference which of them trusted who - when Loras had headed for Dublin, well, Will and Garlan could hardly let him go alone, could they? 

It might have been easier if Jim Connolly had said no. If he’d refused to join with the Brotherhood, none of this might have happened. 

Will might have laughed. If it hadn’t been for Jim, he’d still be walking - he’d helped Jim up after that bloody bullet caught him in the ankle and had taken one to the knee for his trouble, which meant he wasn’t even being held with the others - Da had too much land for them to shoot him, he supposed, the way he’d heard they were going to do away with Jim and the Pearse arseholes (and the Countess, but surely they wouldn’t shoot a woman?). 

He wondered if he’d see Sansa again. Christ Almighty, he’d only wanted to keep his eejit brother safe, and now there was talk of them being sent abroad to prison, to Wales or somewhere like that, somewhere they’d all be found dead after unhappy accidents, like as not. The thought of leaving Sansa a widow brought tears to his eyes, and he wished more than ever that Loras hadn’t damned well thrown in his lot with the fools who’d decided to rebel before they were ready.

He wondered too if they’d caught the Big Fellow, and hoped not. Mick was a canny fecker and might give them a chance at independence if he got out of this mess of Pearse’s and was given a bit of a hand. Will had always gotten along well with Mick ever since they’d met in London, and wondered if Mick’s sisters’d look in on Sansa. God knew there was enough of them. If not them, maybe he could get word to Dilly. Dilly was fond of Sansa, Will knew, and she wouldn’t mind the trip down home.

They’d left his rosary beads with him, which was unexpected. He’d said the rosary a dozen times a day since they’d brought him here, hoping Sansa and the child would be safe if he was shot. 


	39. Where the magic happens.

"Excuse me, Miss Stark," and Sansa wanted to die because this was  _not_ how she had planned on the day before their ninth date going, “could you explain why you’re hiding in here, please?”

When she turned, Willas was smiling-  he was always smiling with her, she’d noticed, even though he was quite serious by nature.

Smiling or not, she didn’t want to admit that she’d ducked into the store room behind the stage in the music hall to avoid her ex’s bitch of a mother. Cersei Lannister was high on Sansa’s Least Wanted list, and the less she had to deal with the wagon the better.

"I do apologise, Mr Tyrell," she said instead, turning the key in the lock just in case Cersei had spotted her and wanted to follow her, "but I had to avoid an altercation."

He tilted his head at her, then shrugged.

"I suppose I can’t talk," he said easily. "I only came down here instead of being a big boy and spending lunch in the staff room because Nan’s left word that she’s dropping by."

Willas’ grandmother, like Cersei, was on the board of management of the school, and, again like Cersei, was terrifying, albeit for different reasons.

 

"I brought food," Sansa said helpfully, holding up her bag - she had an abundance of yoghurt and granola bars, as well as a full punnet of strawberries. "You wouldn’t happen to have a kettle hidden in here anywhere, would you?"

He blushed and pointed at one of the many presses.

"I keep it here for the pre-practicals post-school classes," he explained. "There’s about six types of tea bags, and some coffee as well. Not sure about milk."

So they sat together, and they made green tea and ate yoghurt with crushed granola bars and strawberries sliced with Willas’ steel ruler stirred through, and it was lovely.

But that only carried them fifteen minutes of their lunch hour, and Sansa had very much wanted to invite him inside after their last date but hadn’t quite been brave enough, and when the back room was locked it was inaccessible, sound-proofed and without windows…

"We can’t do this," she said, kneeling over him on the piano stool and trying to kiss him and explain why she shouldn’t kiss him at the same time. "We could be fired for this."

"Don’t care," he said breathlessly, one arm around her back to keep her steady but the other hand curled around the side of her neck. His thumb was stroking under her ear, and she’d never thought such an innocuous little thing could leave her completely ruined but he was making a damn good effort at it. "I could fake a fall and ask that you be allowed out to accompany me home, since if my leg’s acting up I can’t drive and none of my lot live within an hour. That wouldn’t lose us our jobs."

"Might do," she disagreed, letting her head fall back so he could kiss her neck. "Or it might get me fired."

"Well then," he said, "how about you follow me home straight from work and we go and see a matinee of that film you wanted to see tomorrow?"

"That," Sansa said, climbing out of his lap and sitting carefully a good way away, "sounds like a much better plan."

Lucky enough she went to the loo before class, else she’d have been none the wiser about the  _massive fucking hickey he left on her neck._


	40. Hope is the thing with feathers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> > _“Hope” is the thing with feathers -_   
> _That perches in the soul -_   
> _And sings the tune without the words -_   
> _And never stops - at all -_
> 
> _\- "Hope" is the thing with feathers,_ Emily Dickinson
> 
> There was an aviary in the Red Keep. Sansa had never seen it before, but she supposed that was to be expected. Such things were seen as leisure pursuits, and her time in King's Landing had been anything but leisurely.

There was an aviary in the Red Keep. Sansa had never seen it before, but she supposed that was to be expected. Such things as pretty birds and birdsong ( _sing me a song, little bird)_ were seen as leisure pursuits, and her time in King's Landing had been anything but leisurely.

She wandered along the broad aisle in the sweet spring sun, sorrowing that the beautiful birds were trapped here. She recognised a few as Northern birds, thanks to lessons near-forgotten with Maester Luwin and stories shared more recently by the men and women who had fought to reclaim the North for her House - a blue crested tern, drabbed and faded by the warm air from which the snap of ice had thawed so quickly, a snowy owl, brilliant white and sagging under the heavy press of the humidity in which the warm sea saturated the city. 

She knew what it was like, to be one of those birds, weighted down by grief, by longing for home. She knew the way a cage might steal your breath and break your heart, and she wished, almost, that she might throw open all the doors along the paved avenue and free the poor creatures.

Almost only, though. She did not know how the new Queen might react to such a thing, and did not dare risk it.

Still, she found the birdkeeper and asked what she might bring to treat the tern and the snowy owl and the black-necked goose and the beautiful red-tufted swan, just like the ones who swam along the White Knife. If she could not escape - and she could not, not just yet - then she would at least make her time her easier, both for herself and for those others of the North trapped in this cesspool they called a city.

 

* * *

 

Sansa watched a bird be released from the aviary, one day. It had been found by the birdkeeper in one of the courtyards, its wing broken but otherwise in perfect health, so he had brought it back to the aviary and splinted its wing and kept it fed and watered until it had healed.

It was some plain little thing with a splash of shocking green on its wings, and she watched with her heart in her throat as it wheeled away into the sky, chirping as if in delight. She envied the plain little bird.

 

* * *

 

The Queen was an odd woman, tall and thin and scarred and, to Sansa's surprise,  _kind._ She worried that that would leave the Queen vulnerable to manipulation from all manner of unpleasant people ( _Petyr's lessons echoed in Alayne's ears and Sansa forced them away)_ , but the Queen was as stubborn as she was kind, which was a ferocious sort of relief. 

Shireen Baratheon, Sansa was confident, would not be easily led astray. She would outlast any who challenged her, too, just as she had outlived every possible other claimant to the Iron Throne.

Even with the comfort of a good queen on the throne, King's Landing was still the place Sansa least wanted to be in all the world. It still smelled septic, still overflowed with vermin, still carried the stain of her father's blood on the steps of its beloved sept - or at least, so it seemed to her. Sansa wasn't sure if it was truly there or not, but she could not pass the place where her father had breathed his last without seeing the shadow of his lifeblood there on the ground, and it turned her stomach every time. King's Landing was not a good place to be for anyone, but Sansa could not help but feel as though that were especially true for her. 

The aviary was always empty, so she retreated there as often as she could. It seemed forgotten by all but its custodians, a tiny, elderly couple with scarred hands who tended the birds as though they were babes, with whom Sansa felt she shared a sort of kinship - they seemed as sad as she did, to see such beautiful creatures so trapped.

The aviary was always empty, until one day it was not.

 

* * *

 

"I do apologise," Willas said, feeling his cheeks heat at the surprise on the birdkeeper's face. "I wandered through the wrong door in the falconry, I fear - please, forgive me."

He did not wish to leave - the aviary seemed lovely, and he wished he might explore it, but if the birdkeeper desired it he would return to the falconry and forget he had ever come through this door. 

"It's of no matter, m'lord," the birdkeeper said, his seamed and sunbrowned face splitting into a smile. "Does the birds good to see someone new. It's only been myself and my wife, m'lord, and the Red Lady, too, this past while. Does the birds good."

He wondered what interest the Lady Melisandre might have in the birds - they said her magic was gone, but she still gave the Queen good counsel - but decided it did not matter, that even a woman as peculiar as her surely had interests beyond the running of the realm. She was always an interesting companion at court, anyways, offering insights on Willas' fellow courtiers that were often amusing, and he supposed that he would not mind particularly meeting her here. It might give them another thing to speak of, during those insufferable court sessions that were so necessary at present, so the young Queen might show that it was she who ruled the realm now, not her advisers. 

Well, what was left of the realm, he supposed. Dorne and the Iron Islands had already seceded, and there was plenty of talk that the North and the Vale both intended on doing the same in the near future. 

He forgot to think on politics for a time, instead delighting in the variety of specimens the birdkeeper and his wife had discovered and collected into their little haven, birds from all across the Seven Kingdoms and some he recognised only from books, some he knew came from much, much further afield. 

It was not until he came to a huge cage at the far end of the avenue that he realised his assumptions as to the identity of the Red Lady had been vastly wrong.

Oh, Lady Sansa had lustrous bright-dark red hair, true, and pearly-pale skin, but aside from that she shared nothing with Lady Melisandre. She seemed as startled to see him as he was to see her, and staggered to her feet from where she had been kneeling before the cage.

"Lord Tyrell," she said, flushing rosy pink from the tops of her cheeks to the neck of her gown, "I- I did not expect to see anyone else."

Without thinking, he took sliver of peach from the little basket in Lady Sansa's hand and held it through the bars of the cage to the honking goose, just to quiet it a moment so they might speak. To his surprise, Lady Sansa laughed.

"I admit that I did not intend on being here," he admitted. "I got lost, you see, and could not bring myself to turn back when presented with such a little treasure as this."

The goose honked again, and Lady Sansa reached out absently and stroked her finger over its head in a surprisingly affectionate gesture.

"It is very peaceful here," she said quietly, and he thought she seemed terribly sad. "I don't believe anyone knows that this place exists, truth be told."

 

* * *

 

He thought of sad Lady Sansa and the way she had lingered so with the birds at the far end of the aviary, birds that had seemed as tired as she did lonesome, and he wondered if she might be amenable to the idea of friendship. It seemed a terrible thing to be so young and so alone to Willas.

 

* * *

 

The falconry was nothing like the aviary, which seemed to be as much to Lord Tyrell's dissatisfaction as it was to Sansa's. Oh, yes, the birds here were sleek and healthy and powerful to a one, but the room was dark and smelled appalling, and every one of the hawks and falcons wore a hood, which Sansa knew was for a purpose but still considered to be terribly cruel.

In their own way, she thought, these birds were just as trapped as the others in the aviary, and she thought, suddenly and strangely, of Cersei Lannister.

"They don't keep it nearly clean enough," Lord Tyrell said quietly, watching the floor carefully as he placed his crutches. "Gods be good, I'd be rid of any falconer in Highgarden who thought these standards were acceptable, but these are not my birds and I fear the Queen might not take it well if I were to question her judgement."

Sansa had seen the Queen taking such advice from many people, Lord Tyrell among them, so she let herself smile. Lord Tyrell smiled in return, warm and bright, and she remembered whispering his name into her pillow at night,  _Willas Willas Willas,_ and dreaming of pleasure boats on the Mander.

She wondered if they had red-tufted swans on the Mander, and thought it more likely that there would be plain little birds with shocking splashes of green on their wings flitting about the orchards Margaery had told her about in another life.

She passed an easy afternoon in Lord Tyrell's company, sharing over-sweet tea and honey cakes with the birdkeeper and his wife, and when Lord Tyrell invited her to hawk with him the following week, Sansa did not see any reason to decline. No one else in King's Landing seemed to want a thing to do with her, and she had been so terribly lonely since her arrival.

 

* * *

 

Sansa kissed him one day in the aviary, because she could, and because she was leaving soon.

"My sister has called me home," she said, her nose brushing against his as they crowded close against one another, in the corner by the Northern birds. "She would not see me hostage in the Red Keep again."

"Your brother will wear a crown, then?" he asked, thumb brushing over and back behind her ear. "And here I had hoped to invite you to see  _my_ birds, my lady. Do you think he would permit it?"

She blinked at him in surprise - an invitation to visit at Highgarden carried a weight she knew he could not be unaware of, connotations she did not dare think on, and she wondered what he meant by it.  _Mistress or wife,_ she thought, and prayed hard that he did not mean to imply the first.

"I think you would like Highgarden, my lady," he said quietly. "But mayhaps not quite yet."

Sansa considered this, considered the likelihood of war in the wake of Rickon being crowned, and dared to hope.

"Willas," she said quietly, "would you care to come to Winterfell?"


	41. All that I know is  we're here tonight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Five private kisses, and one public.

The first time he kisses her, it's dark and it's glittery and it's New Year's Eve, and they're both marvellously drunk and he tastes of Buck's Fizz and looks like a gift, flushed cheeks and untidy curls wrapped up in a perfect Armani tux complete with emerald green bow tie and cummerbund. She's never wanted to unwrap anything quite so badly, and he laughs bright and beautiful and kisses her again when she tells him so.

Sansa wants to have him right there on the wide leather couch on the veranda out the back of the Tyrells' massive house, under too-bright stars with alcohol and adrenaline and something shimmery and hot that she doesn't recognise dancing in her veins, but instead they kiss and cuddle for the better part of two hours, and only because Loras is singing do they manage to disentangle themselves before they're caught.

The darkness smells of roses and champagne and oranges, and Willas' aftershave is terribly familiar, but Sansa will mostly remember the taste of fizz on his tongue and the feeling of fizz in her belly, and to be embarrassed the next morning. She won't remember the way he whispered her name, or the way his heart hammered under the palm of her hand, or how desperately he clutched at her when she climbed into his lap.

Their first kiss is glitter and fizz and champagne. 

 

* * *

 

 

The next time they kiss, it's not spontaneous and sweet and delicious. Instead, Sansa is trying to avoid a creep old enough to be her father in a club, and she makes a beeline for Willas as soon as she spies him holding up the corner of the bar.

He takes it well, when she leans up on her toes and presses her mouth to his with no explanation, one long-fingered hand curling around the back of her head, into her hair, while the other slides down her back to just above her backside, pressing her tight against him. It's possessive and it's mind-numbingly hot, almost as hot as they way his tongue curls into her mouth and he tastes of whiskey and ginger, tart and sharp and lingering. She pushes against him when his hand curls around her bottom, presses him back against the bar and twists one hand into his soft shirt. She can feel the hard seams of his jeans through the thin skirt of her dress, and the sweat dampening his shirt to his chest and back, and wishes she could feel more, but they're in public and they're drunk, again, and it's not the right moment for any of that. Not yet.

He looks worried when she tells him why she kissed him, and keeps his arm slung low around her back until late into the night, when her friends and his friends have formed one big group and taken over a handful of booths. Even when they're sitting, he keeps his arm around her shoulders, watches the dancefloor and the bar and kisses her neck and shoulder and sometimes even her mouth if he caught sight of her persistent follower. His eyes look almost green in the strange light, and his teeth are sharp on her collarbone when he bares them in warning when her follower moves towards their booth.

Their second kiss is sweat and warning and whiskey.

 

* * *

 

 

There's music in the background the third time it happens, loud, bouncy music, the sort Margaery likes, and this time, it's premeditated. This time, they're both sober.

This time Sansa thinks Willas looks beautiful, elegant and striking in a pale grey suit with a purple-pink rose tucked into his button hole, to match his tie and the ribbons wound around the grip of his cane. She can't remember the last time she saw him without a beard, or the last time she saw him smile this much, and wonders how it would feel to kiss him now, compared to last month. She wonders if it's inappropriate to kiss the best man when you're not a bridesmaid, and decides she doesn't care. He smiles when he sees her coming, holds out his hand and guides her to sit beside him in the shade of the massive cherry blossom, and the wedding is beautiful, spread out on the smooth expanse of the lawn below the terraced gardens.

It's oddly private up here, under the cherry blossom, and Sansa doesn't feel at all shy about taking Willas' face in her hands and kissing him. She can feel the shadow of stubble rasping against her palms, can taste toothpaste or breath mints or chewing gum on his breath and something sweet on his tongue, caramel or fudge syrupy and sugary and delicious. She kisses him and kisses him and doesn't want to pull away, but she does when she hears the clatter of his cane on the paving slabs under their feet.

Their third kiss is a choice and a sweetness and it changes everything.

 

* * *

 

 

Their fourth kiss, as defined in Sansa's mind, begins after Willas has managed to get her upstairs, into his room, onto his bed, and stripped of her silky, lacy knickers.

Willas sits by her knees and tugs off his tie, flinging it aside with something mad in his eyes, and his jacket follows after it. He leaves the pale grey waistcoat with its purple-pink silk back, and before she can do anything more than reach out to take his hand, he's lying on his belly between her legs, kissing his way from her knee to her thigh, pausing to tug at the lace of her stocking with his teeth and groan. She squeezes his hand tight when he slips his tongue against her cunt, achingly gentle, perfect and not enough, and she relinquishes his hand in favour of twisting her fingers through soft thickness of his hair. 

She comes, and he kisses her through it, lips and tongue still working over her clit and the very tops of her thighs, and once she's shivered her last he crawls up the bed and kisses her mouth, and she tastes salt and sour from her on him, and it's somehow both weird and intensely hot.

"Sansa," he says softly, so softly it doesn't break the spiderweb of perfect golden pleasure around them. "Would you like to go to dinner with me?"

Their fourth kiss is silk and perfection and salt.

 

* * *

 

 

Their fifth kiss is...

Their fifth kiss comes when Willas arrives to pick her up for their date. He's wearing a dark navy three-piece suit but no tie, and he has a bouquet of perfect bright red tulips in the crook of one arm and a bottle of Buck's Fizz in a bottle bag hanging from his wrist.  She leaves both on the table inside the door and drags him down by his lapels. She's not wearing shoes yet, so he's much taller than her, and she just about swoons when he pulls her half off her feet and seems to forget that they're snogging like teenagers in the hall that she shares with two other apartments. 

They don't make it to the restaurant for their reservation, but Sansa doesn't mind. She considers the entire date as their fifth kiss, because the longest they go apart is when Willas pulls on his boxers to buzz the takeaway delivery in and accept their order, and it's delicious, wrapped up in her bright pink sheets and trying not to spill either chicken tikka or the vodka she pulled from the back of the press all over one another. 

"What is this?" she murmurs against his mouth, sleepy and wrung out and happier than she thinks she's ever been. "What are we?" she asks, and he just smiles and kisses her, and that's answer enough.

Their fifth kiss is unbalanced and comfortable and vodka.

 

* * *

 

 

"Who's that with Sansa?"

It's one of Lysa's dos, the sort that she organises in hopes of impressing Petyr, Edmure knows, and that means that the whole extended family has to come, even though Lysa hates literally all of them. Edmure's gotten so used to them that they're almost fun now, but he knows that none of Cat's kids agree - Lysa has her knife in Sansa and Bran in particular, probably because they look so much like Cat, so he doesn't blame them for hating these things.

They're Cat's kids, though, so they always do their duty to the family and come to Lysa's dos.

Sansa has arrived at the last few with Ned and Cat and wee Rickon, which is why Edmure's surprised when Roslin doesn't seem to know them - then he turns around, just in time to see Will Tyrell kissing Sansa and turning for the bar.

"I'm going to kill him," Edmure says, and he almost does, except Cat sees and tells him to cop on, Sansa wouldn't have brought Will to Lysa's do if she hadn't introduced him to the family already, and if Ned approves then Edmure doesn't have a leg to stand on.

Doesn't mean he has to like his old lab partner from school kissing his  _niece_ in public, but he has to keep a lid on that, too, since Cat so sweetly pointed out that Roslin had, once upon a time, been  _Robb's_ lab partner.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title from 'Let Go For Tonight' by Foxes


	42. Whispers on the wind

The whispers begin early one morning, so early it's still the previous night.

_Lord Willas is to wed._

And yes, it's true, he is, didn't you hear? Lady Margaery and the Queen of Thorns have found him a wife, a Northern girl of blood so good that even His Lordship can't consider turning her away, and she's on her way here with Ser Garlan and his fair lady!

_Lord Willas is to wed,_ the whispers say, and Cook is relieved. She remembers Lord Willas as a little boy, pink cheeked and curly haired, always trying to sneak past her for a jam tart or a lemon cake, cheerfully accepting her scoldings whenever she caught him. 

_Lord Willas is to wed,_ the whispers say, and Lomys is relieved. He remembers Lord Willas as a little boy, bright eyed and full of laughter, insisting that he would have a brace of sons as fine as himself and Ser Garlan, daughters as sweet as Lady Margaery.

_Lord Willas is to wed,_ and Willas sits in the eastern cloister and watches the sun rise, wondering if this is the right time, if finally a wife has been found who will overlook his bad leg in favour of something other than his title or his wealth.

 

* * *

 

Lady Sansa Stark becomes Lady Sansa Lannister before she can set foot on the roseroad, and Willas pretends not to be as disappointed as he is that she will not become Lady Sansa Tyrell. 

The truth of it is, he's _desperately_ disappointed. Willas has never told anyone, not even Garlan, but the thing he wants more than anything in the world is the thing Garlan shares with Leo, or that Mama shares with Father.

He wants a partner. He wants someone to laugh with at dinner and to sit with in the evenings, someone who can hold his arm when they walk in the gardens and someone...

He wants to be a father, too. He wants children so painfully he can't even speak of it, but he can't bear to give in and wed one of the women or girls Father's bannermen throw at him just for the sake of having children. He can't look past the way Elayne Tarly stares at his leg as though she thinks it's festering under the bandages and brace and breeches, or the way Serra Hewett practically salivated over every chance of a gift but hadn't even tried to carry a conversation with him. There had been Delena Florent, too, several years his senior and beautiful despite those ears, who had expected his father to honour the consideration of a betrothal even after she was delivered of the King's bastard, whose father had come to Father after Willas' accident and tried to finagle the betrothal once more.  _A cripple for a ruin,_ Grandmother had said, and it smarts to this day.

There had been Melinda Rowan, too, who Willas had thought... During their time together in the Hightower, Willas had thought that mayhaps they might have wed one day, but she had been so strange, so  _false,_ in the wake of his accident, and now. Well, now there is not a woman in the Reach Willas thinks would wed him and not see his leg as something she had to  _suffer._

So Willas wants a wife, and children, more even than he wants two working legs. But he will not take a wife who sees him as a burden.

 

* * *

 

Whispers echo on the winter winds, ten years later.

_Lord Willas is to wed._

Willas doesn't believe it will happen - he has prepared himself for bachelorhood, and has even taken to it well, he thinks, plays the doting uncle to Gargoyle's children with aplomb, mayhaps doubly so since he had his leg removed, which allows him to carry all three of the girls in his lap at once, while Alyn "helps" Garlan push Willas' chair through the gardens. 

He still wishes he had children of his own, a little girl who sings like Margaery or a boy with Loras' arrogant, beautiful laugh, but Garlan and Leonette's children are a consolation during the days, even if his nights still stretch out cold and dark and lonely.

But now, he is told that Lady Sansa, once again a Stark, is near at the gates of Highgarden, and the uppermost step outside the main doors of the castle are cleared of snow so he might come out to meet her.

Her mantel is bluish slate-grey, and when she smiles at him in greeting he can see that she is just as terrified as he is.

She curtsies and offers him her hand, and she looks at the sewn up leg of his breeches but smiles at him directly afterward, and he thinks that perhaps, his nights will not be quite so cold and dark anymore.

He does not think he would mind them being so long.


	43. We've got so good at pretending

Alayne stands to her father's right when the doors swing open to admit their guests - guests who fly no standards, who wear such heavy furs and cloaks that no colours or arms are visible. Their leader is a woman, small of frame, and she is flanked by two tall men, followed by a dozen more. Guards, all, Alayne can tell because of the longswords on all their hips and the shields on all their backs.

Plain shields, though, as if they do not wish to be identified. An odd way to travel, especially considering the richness of their furs, the health of their horses, and the quality of their clothes mark them as highborn, or at least very wealthy. Gold gleams on their tack, and Alayne can see more than one pommel twinkling with inlaid gemstones, now that they are coming closer, and the scarves that cover all of their faces are embroidered silk - silk over heavy lambswool, Alayne sees, when they enter the shelter of the walls and untuck the scarves.

Far, far too rich for people without sigils to display, which means they must be hiding something.

The lady at the head of the party remains seated on her beautiful palomino until one of the tall men who rode with her comes and offers her a hand, and when she dismounts, Alayne sees that she is not small - she is  _tiny_ , and her eyes gleam bright in the shadow of her cloak as she takes the arm of one tall man and moves forward, towards the doors.

Lord Nestor steps out to greet her, to Father's obvious annoyance, and Alayne is only glad that Sweetrobin is abed - he does not like strangers, and he likes others speaking before him even less. Alayne does not listen to Lord Nestor, instead watches Father and watches the guests, particularly the lady.

Alayne's breath hitches when the lady casts down her hood to reveal dark, curly hair, tightly coiled and plaited away from her face, and eyes that are even brighter out of the shadow.

"I am Lady Leonette Tyrell of Brightwater," she says, "and I come to speak with Lord Petyr Baelish, on behalf of my husband's family."

Alayne must remind herself three times that she does not know Lady Leonette, that she never danced with Lady Leonette's husband at a wedding a thousand years ago, before she can catch her breath.

 

* * *

 

Alayne is not invited to sit at table with Lady Leonette that night, and is relieved - the dye for her hair has not yet arrived, and if she is found- if she is uncovered-

Lady Leonette and Ser Garlan were kind to a girl with red hair, the same colour as the hair peeking out at Alayne's parting. Alayne wonders if Lady Leonette would be kind to her now, or if she would prove just as dangerous as Alayne's father warns her. He warned her as soon as travellers were sighted to be doubly careful, that one slip could cost her her head ( _the girl with the red hair's father lost his head on the steps of a sept miles away and years_ ago), and Alayne does not wish to die. She fears what might happen to Sweetrobin if she were to die, if nothing else.

"Mistress Alayne," a man calls when Alayne enters one of the small halls, and she turns to see the tall men who escorted Lady Leonette sitting together over a game of some sort. They are twins, with bright red hair, brighter than the girl Alayne once knew, and introduced themselves as Ser Horas and Ser Hobber Redwyne, sons of the Lord of the Arbor, and nephews to the Lord of Highgarden - cousins by marriage to Lady Leonette. "Are you well?"

"Quite well, my lords," she says, offering them a curtsy and thanking the gods that she thought to comb her hair back and bind it with a ribbon, to hide the red. "Is there anything I might get for you? You are the guests, after all."

"Nay, mistress," one - Ser Horace, Alayne thinks, and she wonders which the red-haired girl might have called _Horror_ and which  _Slobber._ "We merely wished to ask had you ever accompanied your father to court - my brother is certain that he has seen you before."

Alayne feels something flutter in her throat, but she dips her head to hide the spike of fear that strikes her heart.

"No, my lords," she says. "I was raised in a motherhouse, and only recently was taken into my lord father's household - upon his marriage to the late Lady Lysa. You must be mistaken, I think."

They wave her away, and when she halts at the door and glances over her shoulder, she sees them watching her, smiling.

She runs, then, and wonders why they are being so polite if they see the red-haired girl who Alayne used to be.

 

* * *

 

Lady Leonette finds her the next morning while she is washing her hands after seeing to Sweetrobin - he had a mild attack of the shakes, and vomited all over himself, the poor thing, and Alayne helped him change his clothes and get back into bed.

Alayne curtsies low, for Lady Leonette is a high lady, higher than any Alayne knows in the Vale, but she is surprised when the lady takes her hands, still damp, and raises her up. Her eyes are pale green, made so bright as they always seem by the sweet brown of her skin, and they are warm when they meet Alayne's own.

"The High Septon - the new one - is a close friend of my husband's grandfather," she says, as though continuing a previous conversation. "He spent many long years as the chief septon of the Starry Sept of Oldtown, and he and Lord Hightower grew close. Lord Hightower's favourite of his grandchildren has always been my elder goodbrother, and he would do anything to see Lord Willas happy."

"He must be a very loving man," Alayne says, confused both by Lady Leonette's words and by the stirring in her belly. "My lady-"

"With that in mind," Lady Leonette says, "he has convinced the High Septon to issue an annulment of the marriage between Sansa Stark and Tyrion Lannister, should the Lady Sansa ever be found - she is betrothed to my goodbrother, after all."

Alayne sits down immediately once Lady Leonette, smiling and bright eyes shining, has taken her leave, and wonders why she feels so dizzy. The red-haired girl would be delighted, but Alayne has no reason to care about the marital prospects of Sansa Stark of Winterfell or Willas Tyrell of Highgarden ( _only for my claim, only my claim, claim claim claim)_. _  
_

* * *

 

"I am sure, Lord Baelish," Lady Leonette says, voice cool as an early spring breeze across cold water, "that you can understand my lord goodfather's doubts. You have a habit of not delivering all that has been agreed upon, in his experience."

Alayne sees confusion blossom on Lord Nestor and Lady Anya's faces, but Lord Yohn's brow furrows and his eyes, dark gold and sharp as an eagle's, dart to look at  _her_. Why he should do such a thing Alayne does not know, but he does, before returning his gaze to Lady Leonette, who meets it levelly, even going so far as to raise one eyebrow as if in challenge.

She has come, according to her papers, to demand troops of the Lords Declarant - although they all mutter that it is strange for a  _woman_ to have been sent, Alayne thinks it eminently sensible, considering Lady Leonette's husband is away at war, as is the younger of her goodbrothers, who is in the Kingsguard besides, and her goodfather is ruling in King's Landing, while the elder of her goodbrothers is confined to Highgarden in his infirmity.

Alayne doesn't know that, of course, so she says nothing, but she thinks the red-haired girl would see the sense of it. There is no one else  _but_ Lady Leonette who might be sent, or near as makes no difference, and if Lord Tyrell cannot trust his gooddaughter, who can he trust?

 _No one at all,_ Alayne's father would say,  _trust no one but yourself, and me,_ but Alayne thinks that that seems terribly lonely, and she wishes she had someone else to trust.

"I am sure I do not know what you mean, Lady Tyrell," Petyr says, his easy, false smile twisting his mouth and leaving his eyes cold and disgruntled. "But I am sure the men the crown demands for the city watch can be arranged."

"And the supplies, for the Riverlands?" Lady Leonette says. "You are Lord of Harrenhall, after all, my lord, Lord Paramount of the Trident - the Riverlands are  _yours_ to support, not my goodfather's. He has quite enough to do with keeping the Crownlands and King's Landing fed without causing a famine in the Reach, I can tell you that."

"Yes, yes," Petyr says, disgruntlement turning to anger now, Alayne can see it, and the red-haired girl's voice in the back of her mind whispers  _Littlefinger, give him his right name_. "We can discuss that later, all of it - for now, I suggest we retire for a short recess, hmm?"

Petyr's hand is hard on Alayne's arm as he tugs her behind him into the antechamber, Lady Anya on their heels.

"You are to leave immediately for Coldoaks with Lady Waynwood," he says, and Alayne cannot help but give a cry of dismay - who will care for Sweetrobin? Has she done something to shame Petyr, that he is sending her away? Has- "I believe Lady Tyrell and her companions may have recognised you," he goes on, "and we cannot risk that, can we, sweetling?"

Lady Anya is apparently an accomplice in Petyr's plan, for she is nodding in agreement, and Alayne wants to weep - no, the red-haired girl wants to weep, Alayne is older and bastard-brave and does not weep - so she nods, and turns away, and walks straight into Lord Yohn's broad chest when she makes to leave the antechamber.

"I would have words with you, my girl," he says, one huge hand on her shoulder. "If I may?"

Once Lord Yohn has escorted her - in a most respectful manner, her arm in his and mild, pleasant conversation - to the same small hall where she came upon Ser Horas and Ser Hobber that first night, he hands her down into a seat and sweeps his arm toward the other attendees.

"Tell us, Lady Sansa," Lord Nestor says, Randa standing behind him with a smile on her face. "What stories of the Vale has Lord Baelish told you?"

"I-"

"Did you think dying your hair could hide your likeness to your lady mother?" Lord Yohn asks, leaning against the table by her side. "Or discounting that, even to your lady aunt? Lady Lysa's beauty may not have withstood the test of time so well as your lady mother's, but there was still enough Tully in her to mark her as your kin, my lady."

Alayne looks from one face to the other, hawkish Lord Yohn to stern Lord Nestor, and then beyond, to sweet Lady Leonette and the smiling twins.

"Please don't give me to the Queen," she says, her voice so tiny she can hardly hear it herself, "I swear I did not kill King Joffrey."

"Oh, Lady Sansa," Lady Leonette laughs. "We know that, you poor thing - why else would we have come for you?"

And so the red-haired girl is given back her name, and Sansa sits wide-eyed and listens as Lady Leonette explains the truth of the plan to remove her from King's Landing, that she was supposed to ride for Highgarden, but that Littlefinger betrayed them - and behind Lady Leonette, the twins' hands flex on the pommels of their swords, and Sansa prays that she never gives them cause for anger - and brought her here, instead.

"We sent word to Lord Yohn here, ahead of our arrival," Lady Leonette goes on, "knowing as we did that he was friends with your own lord father, and that we might rely on him if on no others to be allies to us in this."

"They found more allies than they expected," Lord Nestor says with a sharp smile, and Sansa wonders if Petyr realises how dangerous it is for him to assume that he is to clever to be caught out. "None of us are overly pleased with Lord Baelish's reign, my lady, and less so that he thought to use a good man's daughter as a toy and a tool."

Sansa is so grateful she thinks she might be sick, because she feared this day so terribly and yet they are not calling for her head, by some miracle.

 

* * *

 

She pretends to be Alayne, and does not return Lady Leonette's twinkling smiles, and hides the hope blossoming in her chest.

Lord Yohn is the one to bring Petyr to the audience chamber, where Lord Nestor sits in the high seat and Lady Leonette stands to his left, with Sansa beside her.

"What is the meaning of this?" Petyr demands. "Why have you brought my daughter here?"

"You have no daughter, Baelish," Lord Yohn says, taking his place at Lord Nestor's right hand and crossing his arms. "And you know well the meaning of this, my lord."

Sansa is startled when Maester Colemon is pushed across the floor - she had not noticed him at all, so nervous about her own part in all this - and listens in horror as he admits to poisoning Sweetrobin on Littlefinger's orders.

She cannot understand why Petyr's would want to murder Sweetrobin - her little cousin is dying as it is, but-

Oh. Oh, what if he is not dying, what if he would be healthier by far had it not been for the potions Maester Colemon provided, the potions and medicines  _she_ coaxed Sweetrobin into drinking?

She misses much of what comes next - Lady Anya is brought in, and then dismissed, but Sansa does not know what is said to her, because what if she is the next thing to a  _kinslayer?_ After betraying her father to Queen Cersei, she cannot be that again, never again, and she is so deep inside her own head that she startles when Lady Leonette touches her hand.

"See?" Petyr says. "She does not answer to the Stark girl's name-"

"My name," she says, finding some strength she did not know she possessed.  _I am a Stark,_ she reminds herself,  _I can be brave._ "It is my name. Sansa Stark. That is my name."

It feels good to have her name once more. So, so good.

 

* * *

 

"I was sincere when I told you that Lord Hightower prevailed upon the High Septon to annul your marriage to Lord Tyrion," Lady Leonette says some days later, when so much has happened that Sansa can hardly set it straight in her mind - Petyr is gone, somewhere, and Lady Anya is here but removed from power, with Lord Nestor as Sweetrobin's guardian and Lord Protector, which seems to satisfy all the Lords Declarant save for Lady Anya and Lord Corbray, so Sansa does not mind.

Petyr will be killed, Sansa knows, for trying to murder Sweetrobin, and Maester Colemon with him, and she will not miss either of them. Petyr saved her from execution, true, but he threatened her with that and with ruin every day she spent in his care, she sees that now.

"I would like that," Sansa says, smiling as best she is able to Lady Leonette. "I do not wish to remain a Lannister."

"You might become a Tyrell instead," Lady Leonette says gently, taking Sansa's hands in hers. Her hands look impossibly small and dark twisted together with Sansa's own long, white fingers, and her jaw is set in a way that reminds Sansa of Arya, for just a moment. "You wish to reclaim Winterfell, I do not doubt - my husband's family would be excellent allies in that endeavour, my lady. It is something to consider."

"There is nothing to consider," Lady Anya pipes up from her seat across the room, scowling something terrible. "Lady Sansa is betrothed to my ward, Ser Harrold Hardyng, and since the betrothal was made in good faith and her marriage has since been annulled-"

"Lady Sansa," Lady Leonette said stridently, cutting across Lady Anya as though she were nothing, "is betrothed to my goodbrother, Lord Willas Tyrell of Highgarden. Their betrothal pre-dates her false marriage, since annulled, to Tyrion Lannister, and was approved by her brother before his death."

Sansa knows that that last is a lie, so she is more surprised than even Lady Anya when Lady Leonette's neat little steward produces a sheaf of paper stamped with the Stark direwolf from his little writing box. She knows that they must be forgeries, but they are  _good_ forgeries, and there's something terribly amusing and sad in people being so desperate to add Sansa and Winterfell to their collections that she cannot find it in her to object. 

 

* * *

 

The man she is to marry seems terribly small from a distance, but in truth he is sitting in a wheeled chair, half of one leg missing, and he looks anxious as she approaches.

"It is a pleasure to finally welcome you to Highgarden, my lady," he says, and his voice is pleasantly deep, warm and low and comforting in a way Sansa almost doesn't recognise. "I have waited long to meet you."

He smiles, even though she looks a fright in a borrowed gown with her hair brown and red and everything in between, and she wonders if mayhaps she might convince him to see beyond her claim.

With the Stark direwolf snapping in the breeze over her head, borne high by Ser Horas while Ser Hobber bears Lady Leonette and Ser Garlan's two golden roses, Sansa thinks that mayhaps, she just might.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from 'Holding Onto Heaven' by Foxes


End file.
